prd-interview

name

prd-interview

description

Grill-me interrogation discipline: convert context gaps into a relentless, adversarial, gap-closure-driven question set. Defines P0/P1/P2 tagging, gap-closure termination (no tight cap; large structural safety bound), the MC-vs-freeform rubric (2-6 choices + a 'Not sure / decide later' deferral, no 'Other'), do-not-invent-answers, and the bounded re-grill loop ending in [TBD]+OQ-NN. Triggers on: interview the user, grill me, structured PRD interview, gap questions, P0 questions.

PRD Interview — Grill-Me Interrogation Patterns

This skill is loaded by @prd-interviewer (to author a gap-closure-complete, choice-annotated question set) and @spec-author (to render the questions interactively via ask_user and run the bounded gap-closure loop).

The discipline is grill-me: relentless, adversarial, one-gap-per-question interrogation that closes every open requirement gap before drafting. Completeness over speed. The sub-agent never speaks to the user; it emits the question set and the orchestrator drives the interactive loop.

When to Use This Skill

Load this skill when:

• Converting gaps-json into a gap-closure-complete, choice- annotated question set (interviewer).
• Rendering the questions via ask_user and running the bounded gap-closure loop after the user replies (orchestrator).

Question-quality rules

1. One gap per question. Do not bundle. Re-read the gathered context first — never ask what the inputs already answer.
2. Adversarial framing. Pose questions that force implicit decisions to the surface: "What happens when…?", "What's the threshold for…?", "Who is allowed to…?", "What does the user do before this step?". Prefer the sharp edge case over the bland restatement.
3. MC where enumerable, freeform where open-ended — see the MC-vs-freeform rubric below.
4. Group by target PRD section so the user sees structure.
5. Order by priority within each group. P0 first.
6. Gap-closure termination, not a question cap. Keep asking until every P0 and every reasonably-closable P1/P2 gap is answered or explicitly deferred. There is no tight cap on question count. A large structural safety bound — on the order of dozens of questions — exists only to guarantee termination; it is not a quality cap and you should almost never approach it. Do not artificially truncate a genuinely gap-driven interrogation.
7. Do not invent answers. If you find yourself filling in a placeholder while drafting the question, the answer goes in the interview — not in the spec.

MC-vs-freeform rubric

For every question, decide its kind:

• multiple_choice — use when the answer space is genuinely enumerable (a bounded set of distinct options). Rules:
  • Offer 2–6 distinct choices.
  • Always include an explicit "Not sure / decide later" deferral choice as the final option. A user must never be forced into a bucket.
  • Never add a literal "Other" bucket — the freeform affordance (allow_freeform: true, set by the orchestrator when it renders ask_user) already covers "none of these".
  • Do not fabricate choices to pad to a count. If you can only name one real option, the question is freeform.
• freeform — use when the answer is open-ended: values, thresholds, narratives, names, rationale ("What is the P95 latency target?", "Describe the primary user journey."). Do not invent buckets for open-ended answers.

Priority tagging

Tag	Meaning	Example
P0	Blocker — drafter cannot fill the section without this.	"Who are the primary users? (without this, Users & Personas is empty)"
P1	Improves quality — answer makes the spec materially better.	"What latency is acceptable?"
P2	Nice — adds polish.	"Any preferred terminology for the new feature?"

The orchestrator's re-grill loop only retries on unanswered (or deferred) P0 gaps. P1 and P2 unanswered always go straight to "Open Questions" without retry.

User-context question bank (bridge to experience-surface)

When gaps-json flags persona / JTBD / user-journey / roles-and- permissions / usage-awareness gaps, draw questions from this bank. The priority is gated on the experience-surface axis (set by @context-detective):

• experience-surface fired (UI-forward spec): the persona / journey / role gaps needed for the "User Experience: Personas, Journeys & Roles" section are P0 — the grill escalates on UI-forward specs.
• axis did not fire: the same gaps are P1/P2, feeding the woven context (a JTBD line in Users & Personas, a usage signal in Problem Statement); they never block drafting.

Concept	Example question	Typical kind
Usage awareness	"What does telemetry / support data show about how users hit this problem today?"	freeform
Personas	"Which distinct user types will use this? (pick all that apply, or add your own)"	multiple_choice (+ deferral)
JTBD	"For persona X, what job are they hiring this for — 'When …, I want to …, so I can …'?"	freeform
User journey	"Walk me through the end-to-end steps the user takes to reach the goal."	freeform
Roles & permissions	"Which roles exist, and for capability Y, who is allowed and who is denied?"	multiple_choice (+ deferral) or freeform
Access model	"Is access decided by role only, or also by object ownership / attributes?"	multiple_choice: RBAC / RBAC + ownership (ReBAC) / attribute-based (ABAC) / Not sure / decide later

Reference the full templates in spec-driven-prd-best-practices §11 and user-context-patterns.md.

Bounded gap-closure loop (C5)

The interviewer emits the full gap-closure-complete question set once; the orchestrator renders each question via ask_user (enumerable → choices + allow_freeform: true; open-ended → freeform) and drives the loop:

1. Map every answered question by the interviewer's coverage IDs. A "Not sure / decide later" reply counts as deferred, not answered.
2. Re-grill remaining or newly-revealed P0 gaps. After a round of answers, if any P0 gap is still unanswered/deferred, OR an answer reveals a new P0 gap, issue a focused follow-up round asking only those P0 gaps (prefixed with one context line, e.g. "A couple more before I can draft — these block the spec"). Repeat until every P0 gap is answered or explicitly deferred.
3. Structural safety bound (termination guarantee, not a quality cap). Cap the loop at a large structural bound — on the order of a handful of re-grill rounds / dozens of total questions. This exists only to prevent non-termination; a well-scoped spec closes P0 gaps in one or two rounds. Do NOT treat the bound as a target or use it to truncate a genuinely open interrogation.
4. Residue → do-not-invent fallback. When the loop ends with a P0 still unanswered/deferred: tell @prd-drafter to fill that section with [TBD — interview question N unanswered] and add a verbatim OQ-NN entry to the spec's "Open Questions" section. Never fabricate the answer.
5. P1/P2 unanswered → straight to "Open Questions", no retry. They never block progress and are never re-grilled.

Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Problem	Fix
Artificial tight cap ("stop at 12")	Leaves P0 gaps open; the spec ships with holes	Terminate on gap closure; only the large structural safety bound applies.
Fabricated multiple-choice buckets	Misleads the user; invents structure	If you can name only one real option, make it freeform.
Forcing the user into a bucket with no deferral	User can't say "unknown"; produces bad data	Every MC question ends with "Not sure / decide later".
Adding a literal "Other" choice	Redundant with the freeform affordance	Drop "Other"; rely on allow_freeform: true.
Compound questions ("latency target AND rollout window?")	One half gets answered	Split into two questions.
Closed yes/no when the answer is qualitative	Loses information	Ask "Why?" / "What does that look like?" (freeform).
Asking about the obvious ("What's this feature called?")	Wastes attention	Re-read inputs first.
Retrying P1/P2 if unanswered	Slows the user; not a blocker	Promote to "Open Questions" silently.

Quality checklist

• No artificial cap — the set is sized by gap closure, not a fixed number; only the large structural safety bound applies.
• Every question is one gap, adversarially framed.
• Every question tagged P0 / P1 / P2, P0 first.
• Every question has a kind (multiple_choice | freeform).
• Every multiple_choice question has 2–6 real choices, ends with "Not sure / decide later", and has no "Other".
• Every question maps to a specific PRD section in the coverage output.
• User-context gaps are P0 iff experience-surface fired, else P1/P2.
• No compound questions.
• The fenced question set and interview-questions.md agree byte-for-byte.