grill-me

name	grill-me
description	Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design, presenting choices one at a time until shared understanding is reached. Resolves every branch of the decision tree. Use when the user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".

Skill: Grill Me

Category: Planning & Design Purpose: Stress-test plans and designs through relentless, structured questioning before implementation begins. Used By: plan-maker, documentation-writer, agent-maker

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Overview

Stress-test plans and designs through relentless, structured questioning before implementation begins. Every decision branch is resolved one-by-one until shared understanding is reached.

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When to Activate

Activate when:

• User says "grill me", "challenge my plan", "stress-test this", "interrogate my design", or any close variant
• A new plan is being created and design decisions remain open
• A design review is requested before committing to implementation
• A checklist item or acceptance criteria needs clarification before work starts

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Process

Interview the user about every aspect of the plan until shared understanding is reached. Walk down each branch of the decision tree, resolving dependencies one-by-one.

Rules (HARD — no exceptions):

1. Ask questions one at a time — never bundle multiple questions in one message
2. EVERY question MUST present 2–4 concrete options with trade-off descriptions — open-ended questions without options are FORBIDDEN. If options cannot be enumerated, read the codebase first (Rule 4) and synthesize them before asking
3. Mark the recommended option clearly, e.g. **(Recommended)**
4. Explore the codebase first — if a question can be answered by reading existing files (plans, specs, governance docs), read them instead of asking
5. Continue until all branches are resolved

Tool preference: When operating in a Claude Code context, use the AskUserQuestion tool for each question. The interactive multi-choice UI shows the user exactly which options are available and lets them select with a single click. Fall back to the markdown format below only when AskUserQuestion is unavailable.

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Question Format (Markdown Fallback)

When AskUserQuestion is not available, structure each question like this:

[Question]

• Option A: [description] — [trade-off]
• Option B: [description] — [trade-off] (Recommended)
• Option C: [description] — [trade-off]

Recommendation: Option B because [specific reason grounded in this context].

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IKP-Labs Context

When grilling about IKP-Labs plans, common decision branches include:

Topic	Typical options to surface
Plan scope	Single PR vs. multi-phase split
Agent design	Maker-only vs. full MCF triad
Skill dependency	Create stub now vs. bundle with consumer
Commit strategy	1 commit per file vs. 1 commit per logical unit
Acceptance criteria	Gherkin Given/When/Then vs. prose checklist items

Read plans/in-progress/ before asking plan-related questions — the answer may already be documented.

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After the Grilling

When all decision tree branches are resolved:

1. Summarize every decision made and its rationale
2. Confirm shared understanding explicitly
3. Signal readiness to proceed to plan writing or implementation

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Related Skills

• plan-creating-project-plans — 4-document plan system structure
• plan-writing-gherkin-criteria — writing acceptance criteria in Gherkin format
• repo-applying-maker-checker-fixer — MCF pattern decisions

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Last Updated: June 2026