| name | grill-me |
| description | Stateless relentless interview to sharpen a plan, design, or piece of writing. No working directory, no CONTEXT.md, no ADRs—pure thinking. Invokes the grilling primitive (rounds, frontier, facts=agent job, decisions=user). Use when not in a repo: sharpening a talk, a design doc, a life decision, any thinking with no codebase under it. Trigger: "grill me", "stress-test my plan", "interview me about". |
R — Reference (≤100 words)
Upstream: skills/productivity/grill-me/SKILL.md (7 lines). Delegates entirely to the grilling skill. Description: "A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design." Key distinction from grill-with-docs: stateless—saves nothing locally, builds no CONTEXT.md. Use when not working in a working directory (sharpening a plan, design, writing, anything with no repo). If in a working directory, use grill-with-docs instead (same interview + paper trail = strictly better).
I — Methodology (in own words)
Core principle: Same grilling primitive as grill-with-docs, but no artifacts left behind. Pure thinking partner.
Grilling primitive (from grilling skill):
- Design tree: every decision branches into dependent decisions
- Rounds: work the frontier (decisions whose prerequisites are settled)
- Format per question: numbered, body with choices, agent's recommended answer
- Facts = agent's job: dispatch sub-agents for filesystem/tools; never ask user what agent can look up
- Decisions = user's job: put each to user, wait for answer
- Done when frontier empty: every branch visited, nothing silently assumed
Stateless constraints: No CONTEXT.md, no ADRs, no repo coupling. Session ends → context gone (unless user copies). Use for: talk prep, design docs, architecture sketches, life decisions, writing outlines—anything without a codebase.
Entry point: User says "grill me" or describes a plan/design they want stress-tested.
A1 — Upstream Typical Applications
- Conference talk prep: "grill me on my talk outline" → rounds expose weak transitions, missing evidence
- Architecture decision: "should we use Kafka or RabbitMQ?" → frontier questions on throughput, ops burden, team familiarity
- Writing project: "stress-test this book proposal" → rounds on audience, chapter flow, differentiation
- Career move: "grill me on this job offer" → frontier on growth, culture, compensation, location
- Product strategy: "interview me about this roadmap" → rounds on sequencing, dependencies, metrics
A2 — Trigger Scenarios (3 contexts + language signals + sibling distinction)
| Context | User Language Signals (≥3) | vs Sibling Skills |
|---|
| No-repo thinking | "grill me", "stress-test my plan", "interview me", "no codebase", "just thinking" | vs grill-with-docs: that skill requires a working directory and creates CONTEXT.md/ADRs; grill-me is stateless |
| Design/doc sharpening | "sharpen this design", "poke holes in my proposal", "find blind spots" | vs grill-with-docs: same interview primitive; grill-me leaves no paper trail |
| Quick clarification | "help me think through", "talk this through", "rubber duck" | vs grilling: grilling is the primitive; grill-me is the named stateless entry |
E — Execution Steps (each with "完成标准:")
-
Confirm stateless context — Verify user has no working directory or explicitly wants no artifacts.
完成标准: User confirms "no repo" or "stateless only".
-
Invoke grilling primitive — Call Skill tool for "grilling". The primitive takes over: builds design tree, computes frontier, runs rounds.
完成标准: Grilling skill invoked; first round of questions presented.
-
Run rounds until frontier empty — Each round: agent asks all frontier questions with recommended answers; user answers; tree updates; next frontier computed. Agent finds facts via sub-agents.
完成标准: All rounds completed; user confirmed shared understanding; no open frontier questions.
-
Summarize outcome — Produce a clean summary of decisions made, open risks, and next steps (no artifacts saved).
完成标准: Summary delivered; user can copy/paste; no files written.
B — Boundaries & Limits
不适用:
- Working in a git repo (use grill-with-docs—strictly better, leaves paper trail)
- Need to record decisions for team (use grill-with-docs)
- Need domain modeling / ADRs (use grill-with-docs which invokes domain-modeling)
- Bug diagnosis (use diagnosing-bugs)
局限: No persistence—session context lost on clear/compact. No CONTEXT.md for future sessions. No ADR trail. Not for codebase work.
Related Skills
- grilling (the primitive this skill invokes), grill-with-docs (stateful counterpart), domain-modeling (invoked by grill-with-docs, not this), wayfinder (for huge foggy efforts, uses grilling internally), triage (uses grilling internally), improve-codebase-architecture (uses grilling internally)
Audit
V1✓ V2✓ V3✓ | 2026-08-26 | Source: D:\outcome\self\upstream\mattpocock__skills\skills\productivity\grill-me\SKILL.md
