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mattpocock/grilling

mattpocock

grilling

Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea. Use when the user wants to stress-test their thinking, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases.

NewUpdated Sep 9, 2026

Interview the user relentlessly until you reach a shared understanding. Map this as a design tree: every decision branches into the decisions that hang off it.

Work the tree in rounds. The frontier is every decision whose prerequisites are already settled: the questions you can ask now without guessing at answers you haven't heard yet. Ask the whole frontier in one round: number each question and give your recommended answer. Then wait for the user's answers before the next round.

Format a round like so:

❓ **Q1** - **<question title>**: <question body, might be multiple paragraphs, including multiple choices>

➡️ <your recommended answer>

---

❓ **Q2** - **<question title>**: <question body, might be multiple paragraphs, including multiple choices>

➡️ <your recommended answer>

Each round the user answers reshapes the tree: settled decisions push the frontier outward and unblock questions that depended on them. Recompute the frontier and ask the next round. A question whose answer depends on another question still open in this round belongs to a later round, not this one.

Finding facts is your job, never the user's. When a frontier question needs a fact from the environment (filesystem, tools, etc.), dispatch a sub-agent to find it; don't ask the user for anything you could look up yourself. Don't block on it: a running exploration is an unsettled prerequisite, so only the questions downstream of it wait for the sub-agent to report; ask the rest of the frontier now. The decisions are the user's: put each to them and wait.

The session is done when the frontier is empty: every branch of the design tree visited, nothing left silently assumed. Do not act on it until the user confirms you have reached a shared understanding.

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Overall Score

78/100

Grade

B

Good

Grades are signals, not a certification. Always review a skill yourself before use.

Safety

92

Quality

75

Clarity

82

Completeness

68

Summary

A conversational skill that guides an AI agent to systematically interview users about plans, decisions, or ideas by building and exploring a decision tree. The skill uses a "frontier" algorithm to ask only the questions whose prerequisites are settled in each round, and dispatches sub-agents to look up facts rather than blocking the user. Sessions continue until the tree is fully explored and a shared understanding is reached.

Detected Capabilities

conversational interviewdecision tree constructionfrontier algorithm logicsub-agent delegation for fact-findingstructured question formatting

Trigger Keywords

Phrases that agents use to match this skill to user intent.

grill the userstress-test decisioninterview about planquestion assumptionsexplore design tree

Use Cases

  • Stress-test a product feature proposal by mapping decision dependencies
  • Interview a stakeholder about project requirements without making assumptions
  • Systematically explore assumptions in a design or architectural plan
  • Conduct user research by building a decision tree of preferences and constraints
  • Validate business logic by questioning the reasoning behind a pricing or feature decision

Quality Notes

  • Clear and well-documented algorithm with practical examples of round formatting
  • Explicitly documents the distinction between facts (agent's responsibility) and decisions (user's responsibility)
  • Provides actionable guidance on frontier computation and round structure
  • Sub-agent delegation pattern is well-explained and prevents blocking on environmental lookups
  • Instruction assumes the agent understands tree data structures and topological ordering — no pseudo-code or algorithm reference provided
  • No guidance on how to handle contradictory user answers or when to terminate a session if the frontier grows unbounded
  • No error handling or fallback behavior documented for sub-agent failures
Model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001Analyzed: Sep 9, 2026

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Version History

  1. v2.0

    Contract changed: description

    ✦ AIShifts from sequential questioning to parallel frontier model; introduces design tree mapping, async fact-finding, and structured round formatting.

    triggering2026-09-09

    LATEST
  2. v1.0

    2026-06-30

    View This VersionInitial version

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