grill-me

name	grill-me
description	Interviews the user relentlessly about a plan or design until reaching shared understanding, resolving each branch of the decision tree. Use when user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".

Grill Me

Interview the user relentlessly about every aspect of their plan until reaching a shared understanding. Walk down each branch of the design tree, resolving dependencies between decisions one-by-one.

If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead of asking the user.

When to apply

• The user says "grill me", "stress-test this", or "challenge my design"
• A plan or design needs validation before implementation
• Key assumptions or risks have not been made explicit

Grilling rules

1. One question at a time. Ask a single focused question, wait for the answer, then continue.
2. Follow branches. When an answer reveals a new decision point, note it and return to it.
3. Probe assumptions. Ask "what happens if X fails?" or "have you considered Y?"
4. Resolve dependencies first. Don't ask about implementation details before the core approach is decided.
5. Summarise before moving on. After a branch is resolved, confirm the decision in one sentence.
6. Stop when complete. When all branches are resolved and no open questions remain, summarise the full design and end.

Example

User: I'm thinking of using a message queue to decouple the order service from the payment service.

Agent: Good starting point. What happens when the payment service is down for more than a few minutes — do orders queue up indefinitely, or is there a timeout and fallback?

Checklist

• Core approach decided before implementation details
• Every major branch of the decision tree explored
• Failure modes and edge cases addressed
• Dependencies between decisions resolved in correct order
• Final design summarised and confirmed with the user