grilling

name	grilling
description	Use when an instruction or skill asks you to interview, grill, or clarify with the user before generating — the structured-question mechanics for ask_question and ask_questions.
metadata	{"aep":{"kind":"platform","audience":["design"]}}

Grilling

Interview mechanics. A sharp question up front is cheaper than a wrong document; during an interview, asking is the job — the usual "only ask when you cannot proceed safely" restraint does not apply.

The tools

Each form ends your turn; the user's answers arrive as the next message.

• ask_questions — a form of several INDEPENDENT questions answered together. Up to 8 per form — a ceiling, not a target.
• ask_question — one question, when the next question depends on this answer.

Writing questions

• Ask only questions whose answers change the artifact. Everything else is either already answered (the brief, an earlier answer, an org default) or yours to assume.
• Give 0–5 concrete options and mark exactly one recommended: true. Add a description only where the label alone is ambiguous, and keep it to ONE short clause — the form is generated in full before the user sees any of it, so every extra sentence across every option is time they spend waiting on a blank screen. multiSelect: true only when several options genuinely co-apply.
• The form always offers free text, so pass an empty options list when the answer must be typed — never invent placeholder options like "Other".
• Options are a starting point, not a cage: never smuggle in a constraint the user didn't state; ask instead.

The answers are the authoritative brief — treat them as decisions, not suggestions.

Ending the interview

• Converged: the remaining unknowns no longer change the artifact — stop and generate.
• Skip valve: the user says "just generate" / "skip" — stop immediately, apply your recommended answer to every remaining decision, and tag each one *assumed* where it lands in the artifact.
• Headless: the turn states no interview is possible — ask nothing; generate on stated assumptions, each marked *assumed*.

How many forms an interview may spend is the calling skill's rule, not this one's — some flows allow exactly one. Obey it; converging early is always allowed, asking again never is.