By name: grill-me description: Interviews 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".
Grill Me
Interview the user relentlessly about every aspect of their plan until reaching a shared understanding. Walk down each branch of the design tree, resolving dependencies between decisions one-by-one.
If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead of asking the user.
When to apply
- The user says "grill me", "stress-test this", or "challenge my design"
- A plan or design needs validation before implementation
- Key assumptions or risks have not been made explicit
Grilling rules
- One question at a time. Ask a single focused question, wait for the answer, then continue.
- Follow branches. When an answer reveals a new decision point, note it and return to it.
- Probe assumptions. Ask "what happens if X fails?" or "have you considered Y?"
- Resolve dependencies first. Don't ask about implementation details before the core approach is decided.
- Summarise before moving on. After a branch is resolved, confirm the decision in one sentence.
- Stop when complete. When all branches are resolved and no open questions remain, summarise the full design and end.
Example
User: I'm thinking of using a message queue to decouple the order service from the payment service.
Agent: Good starting point. What happens when the payment service is down for more than a few minutes — do orders queue up indefinitely, or is there a timeout and fallback?
Checklist
- Core approach decided before implementation details
- Every major branch of the decision tree explored
- Failure modes and edge cases addressed
- Dependencies between decisions resolved in correct order
- Final design summarised and confirmed with the user