Scan the codebase for architectural friction and propose deepening opportunities as candidate cards, then interrogate the chosen one into a decision. Two entry points — proactive, when the user asks "improve the architecture" or "why is this codebase painful…
Use when starting any new feature or product request, before writing a plan or code — turns an idea into a short approved spec by surfacing the decisions that will hurt later. Depth scales with risk tier.
Use when encountering any bug, test failure, unexpected behavior, or performance regression — before proposing any fix. Root-cause discipline plus a feedback-loop method; applies at every tier.
Use when designing or improving a module's interface, deciding where a seam goes, making code more testable or navigable, or pinning down domain terminology. Provides the deep-module vocabulary other skills lean on.
Interview 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".
Use at the end of T3 work, after an incident/rollback, or when the user asks for a retro — turns what happened into recorded learnings that live in the repo (CHANGELOG entry, typed LEARNINGS.md entries, follow-up tasks, and — only with explicit user approval…
Scaffold the handoff project-memory system into THIS repository (new or existing) — copies the template tree into .handoff/, then runs a guided discovery pass that drafts a real STATUS, MAP, TECH_STACK, and PRODUCT from the actual codebase and confirms with…
Use when work is verified and ready to leave the machine — branch/PR/merge/deploy/smoke-check. Triggers on "ship it", "deploy", "merge the PR", "push this", "release", "go live", "cutover". Covers git hygiene, PR and merge discipline, deploy-target detection…