feat(writing-for-agents): add the cache leading word for environment truth

Single source of truth now reaches past the document into the environment.
package.json scripts, config files, directory layout and --help output are
authoritative already, so a doc restating them is a cache of a lookup that
earns its load only when the lookup is expensive.

Co-authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

.changeset/grilling-question-format.md

@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
----
-"mattpocock-skills": patch
----
-
-Pin the question format in **`grilling`**. Every question in a round is now emitted in one fixed shape — `❓ **Q1** - **<title>**`, then the body (prose or multiple choices), then the recommendation on its own `➡️` line. A round reads as a scannable numbered list with each recommendation visually separated from the question, so you can answer by number instead of quoting questions back.

.changeset/grilling-rounds-docs-sync.md

@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
----
-"mattpocock-skills": patch
----
-
-Sync the skills and docs that still described grilling as a **one-question-at-a-time** interview. Since the round-by-round rework, `grill-me`, `grill-with-docs` and `triage` all run the frontier a round at a time — their pages, `triage`'s grill step and `grilling`'s Codex `short_description` now say so. The opt-out for the old rhythm (a line in your global `CLAUDE.md`) is unchanged.

README.md

@@ -22,64 +22,49 @@ If you want to keep up with changes to these skills, and any new ones I create,
 
 [Sign Up To The Newsletter](https://www.aihero.dev/s/skills-newsletter)
 
-## Installation (30-second setup)
+## Quickstart (30-second setup)
 
-Two ways in, two philosophies. **The [Claude Code plugin](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins)** installs the whole set as a managed, read-only bundle that updates when I ship — you subscribe rather than fork. **[skills.sh](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills)** copies editable skill files into your project, so you can hack on them and make them your own. Pick one — installing both leaves you with every skill twice.
+1. Run the skills.sh installer:
-
-### 1. Get the skills
-
-<details>
-<summary><strong>Claude Code</strong></summary>
-
-```bash
-claude plugins install mattpocock-skills
-```
-
-Or, from inside a session:
-
-```
-/plugin install mattpocock-skills
-```
-
-It's in Claude Code's official marketplace, so there's nothing to add first, and updates arrive automatically.
-
-</details>
-
-<details>
-<summary><strong>Codex, and other agents</strong></summary>
 
 ```bash
 npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
 ```
 
-Pick the skills you want, and which coding agents to install them on. **The installer lets you choose which skills to take — make sure `setup-matt-pocock-skills` is one of them.**
+2. Pick the skills you want, and which coding agents you want to install them on. **Make sure you select `/setup-matt-pocock-skills`**.
 
-A native Codex plugin is on the roadmap — see [`.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md`](./.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md).
+3. Run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` in your agent. It will:
+   - Ask you which issue tracker you want to use (GitHub, Linear, or local files)
+   - Ask you what labels you apply to tickets when you triage them (`/triage` uses labels)
+   - Ask you where you want to save any docs we create
 
-</details>
+4. Bam - you're ready to go.
 
-<details>
+## Install as a Claude Code plugin
-<summary><strong>For tinkerers</strong></summary>
 
-Use the same installer, on any agent — including Claude Code:
+Prefer a plug-and-play install you don't maintain by hand? These skills also ship as a native [Claude Code plugin](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins). Instead of copying editable files into your repo, the plugin installs the whole skill set as a managed bundle that updates when I ship a new version — you subscribe rather than fork.
 
-```bash
+Inside Claude Code:
-npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
+
+```
+/plugin marketplace add mattpocock/skills
+/plugin install mattpocock-skills@mattpocock
 ```
 
-It writes the skills into your repo as ordinary files you own and can edit. Nothing updates behind your back; pull my latest changes when you want them with `npx skills update`.
+Or from your shell:
 
-</details>
+```bash
+claude plugin marketplace add mattpocock/skills
+claude plugin install mattpocock-skills@mattpocock
+```
 
-### 2. Run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills`
+Then run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` once per repo, exactly as in the quickstart above.
 
-In your agent, run it once per repo. It will:
+Two ways to install, two philosophies:
 
-- Ask you which issue tracker you want to use (GitHub, Linear, or local files)
+- **[skills.sh](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills)** copies the skills into your project so you can hack on them and make them your own.
-- Ask you what labels you apply to tickets when you triage them (`/triage` uses labels)
+- **The plugin** keeps them as a read-only, always-current bundle you don't edit — best when you just want my set to work and follow along as it evolves.
-- Ask you where you want to save any docs we create
 
-### 3. Bam - you're ready to go.
+> Using Codex or another agent? The [skills.sh installer](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills) already installs these skills into Codex and other Agent-Skills-standard harnesses today. A native Codex plugin is on the roadmap — see [`.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md`](./.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md).
 
 ## Why These Skills Exist
 

docs/engineering/grill-with-docs.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ npx skills update grill-with-docs
 
 ## What it does
 
-`grill-with-docs` interviews you relentlessly about a plan or design, a round of questions at a time, until you and the agent reach a shared understanding — and it writes the vocabulary and decisions down as you go.
+`grill-with-docs` interviews you relentlessly about a plan or design, one question at a time, until you and the agent reach a shared understanding — and it writes the vocabulary and decisions down as you go.
 
 The grilling **leaves a paper trail**. A plain interview sharpens your thinking and then evaporates when the session ends; this one captures each term the moment it's resolved into a `CONTEXT.md` glossary, and records the hard, one-way decisions as ADRs. The alignment survives the conversation instead of living only in your head.
 
@@ -28,13 +28,13 @@ This skill is stateful — it writes into your repo as it grills. Resolved terms
 
 ## The grill
 
-The engine is a **grill**: a relentless, round-by-round walk down the decision tree. Each round asks the whole **frontier** — every decision whose prerequisites are already settled — and waits, so dependencies between decisions are resolved before the questions that hang off them are asked, with a recommended answer offered for every question. Questions the codebase can answer are answered by reading the codebase, not by asking you.
+The engine is a **grill**: a relentless, one-question-at-a-time walk down the decision tree, resolving dependencies between decisions before moving on, with a recommended answer offered for every question. Questions the codebase can answer are answered by reading the codebase, not by asking you.
 
 What makes this variant its own skill is where the answers go. As the grill runs, fuzzy language gets sharpened into canonical terms and written to the glossary inline — not batched at the end. The glossary stays a glossary: pure vocabulary, no implementation details, no spec. ADRs are offered sparingly, only when a decision is hard to reverse, surprising without context, and the result of a real trade-off. Most sessions produce a sharper glossary and few or no ADRs, and that's the intended shape.
 
 ## It's working if
 
-- It asks a round of independent questions and waits, rather than dumping the whole questionnaire at you.
+- It asks one question at a time and waits, rather than dumping a questionnaire.
 - Terms get written to `CONTEXT.md` the moment they resolve, in your project's own words.
 - It reaches into the codebase to answer its own questions where it can.
 - ADRs stay rare — you're not asked to rubber-stamp reversible choices.

docs/engineering/triage.md

@@ -43,4 +43,4 @@ The step that separates `triage` from ad-hoc labelling is verification. It repro
 
 ## Where it fits
 
-`triage` is the **periodic maintenance** pass over your issue tracker — run it whenever reports pile up, to keep the queue sorted and the `ready-for-agent` column trustworthy. It sits at the front of the tracker, upstream of the build chain: the briefs it writes are what [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) later picks up to implement. When a request needs sharpening it leans on [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) and [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling) to grill it into shape a round of questions at a time. Its close neighbour is [to-spec](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec), which populates the tracker from a fresh conversation where `triage` processes what's already there. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.
+`triage` is the **periodic maintenance** pass over your issue tracker — run it whenever reports pile up, to keep the queue sorted and the `ready-for-agent` column trustworthy. It sits at the front of the tracker, upstream of the build chain: the briefs it writes are what [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) later picks up to implement. When a request needs sharpening it leans on [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) and [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling) to grill it into shape one question at a time. Its close neighbour is [to-spec](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec), which populates the tracker from a fresh conversation where `triage` processes what's already there. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/grill-me.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ npx skills update grill-me
 
 `grill-me` runs a relentless interview about a plan or design, walking every branch of the decision tree until you and the agent reach a **shared understanding**.
 
-It asks in **rounds** and waits. A round is the whole **frontier** — every decision whose prerequisites are already settled — put to you as one numbered list, so you're never asked something that hinges on an answer the agent hasn't heard yet. Where a question can be answered by reading the codebase, it goes and reads rather than asking. Each question comes with the agent's own recommended answer, so you are reacting to a proposal, not staring at a blank prompt.
+It asks **one question at a time** and waits. It never dumps a batch of questions at you — that is bewildering — and where a question can be answered by reading the codebase, it goes and reads rather than asking. Each question comes with the agent's own recommended answer, so you are reacting to a proposal, not staring at a blank prompt.
 
 ## When to reach for it
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Reach for it before you build, when a plan feels roughly right but you can sense
 
 ## The decision tree
 
-The session walks the plan as a tree of decisions, settling a parent decision before the choices that hang off it. Your answers reshape the tree and push the frontier outward, so the next round asks whatever they unblocked. The point is not to reach agreement quickly; it is to make every implicit call explicit, so nothing important is left silently assumed. You come out the other side with a plan whose branches have all been visited.
+The session walks the plan as a tree of decisions, resolving dependencies between them one by one — a parent decision settled before the choices that hang off it. The point is not to reach agreement quickly; it is to make every implicit call explicit, so nothing important is left silently assumed. You come out the other side with a plan whose branches have all been visited.
 
 `grill-me` is **stateless**: it writes nothing and leaves no workspace behind. It runs anywhere, and the only artifact is the sharpened understanding in the conversation itself. That is the deliberate contrast with [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), which captures the same interview as durable ADRs and a glossary.
 

docs/productivity/grilling.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ npx skills update grilling
 
 `grilling` is the relentless interview that stress-tests a plan or design before you build it. It maps the plan as a **design tree** — every decision branches into the decisions that hang off it — and works that tree in **rounds** until you and the agent share the same understanding.
 
-Each round asks the whole **frontier**: every decision whose prerequisites are already settled — the questions it can put to you *now* without guessing at answers it hasn't heard yet. Your answers reshape the tree, pushing the frontier outward, and the next round asks whatever that unblocks. Thirteen questions land in a handful of rounds instead of thirteen. Every question arrives in a fixed shape — numbered and titled behind a `❓` (`❓ **Q1** - **Storage backend**`), then the body, then the agent's recommendation on its own `➡️` line — so a round reads as a scannable list and you can answer it by number rather than by quoting it back; any *fact* the environment can settle it dispatches to a background sub-agent rather than asking you — and it doesn't block on that research, only the questions downstream of it wait. It won't act on the plan until you confirm the shared understanding has been reached.
+Each round asks the whole **frontier**: every decision whose prerequisites are already settled — the questions it can put to you *now* without guessing at answers it hasn't heard yet. Your answers reshape the tree, pushing the frontier outward, and the next round asks whatever that unblocks. Thirteen questions land in a handful of rounds instead of thirteen. Every question comes with the agent's own recommended answer; any *fact* the environment can settle it dispatches to a background sub-agent rather than asking you — and it doesn't block on that research, only the questions downstream of it wait. It won't act on the plan until you confirm the shared understanding has been reached.
 
 ### Prefer one question at a time?
 

skills/engineering/to-tickets/SKILL.md

@@ -103,3 +103,5 @@ The end-to-end behaviour this ticket makes work, from the user's perspective —
 </issue-template>
 
 In either form, avoid specific file paths or code snippets — they go stale fast. Exception: if a prototype produced a snippet that encodes a decision more precisely than prose can (state machine, reducer, schema, type shape), inline it and note briefly that it came from a prototype. Trim to the decision-rich parts — not a working demo, just the important bits.
+
+Work the frontier one ticket at a time with `/implement`, clearing context between tickets.

skills/engineering/triage/SKILL.md

@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ Show counts and a one-line summary per item. Let the maintainer pick.
 
 3. **Verify the claim.** Before any grilling, check that the claim holds up. For a bug, reproduce it from the reporter's steps. For a PR, confirm the diff does what it claims — check it out, run the relevant tests or commands. Report what happened: confirmed (with code path), failed, or insufficient detail (a strong `needs-info` signal). A confirmed verification makes a much stronger agent brief.
 
-4. **Grill (if needed).** If the request needs fleshing out, run the `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` skills together — grill it into shape a round of questions at a time, sharpening domain terms and updating `CONTEXT.md`/ADRs inline as decisions land.
+4. **Grill (if needed).** If the request needs fleshing out, run the `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` skills together — grill it into shape one question at a time, sharpening domain terms and updating `CONTEXT.md`/ADRs inline as decisions land.
 
 5. **Apply the outcome:**
    - `ready-for-agent` — post an agent brief comment ([AGENT-BRIEF.md](AGENT-BRIEF.md)).

skills/engineering/wayfinder/SKILL.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Wayfinder is **planning** by default: each ticket resolves a decision, and the m
 
 ## Refer by name
 
-Every map and ticket is an issue, so it has a **name** — its title. In everything the human reads — narration, the map's Decisions-so-far — refer to it by that name, never by a bare id, number, or slug. A wall of `#42, #43, #44` is illegible; names read at a glance. The id and URL don't vanish — a name wraps its link — but they ride _inside_ the name, never stand in for it.
+Every map and ticket is an issue, so it has a **name** — its title. In everything the human reads — narration, the map's Decisions-so-far — refer to it by that name, never by a bare id, number, or slug. A wall of `#42, #43, #44` is illegible; names read at a glance. The id and URL don't vanish — a name wraps its link — but they ride *inside* the name, never stand in for it.
 
 ## The Map
 
@@ -72,12 +72,12 @@ The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see [Work thr
 
 ## Ticket Types
 
-Every ticket is either **HITL** — human in the loop, worked _with_ a human who speaks for themselves — or **AFK**, driven by the agent alone. A HITL ticket only resolves through that live exchange; the agent never stands in for the human's side of it (a grilling agent that answers its own questions has broken this).
+Every ticket is either **HITL** — human in the loop, worked *with* a human who speaks for themselves — or **AFK**, driven by the agent alone. A HITL ticket only resolves through that live exchange; the agent never stands in for the human's side of it (a grilling agent that answers its own questions has broken this).
 
 - **Research** (AFK): Reading documentation, third-party APIs, or local resources like knowledge bases to surface a fact a decision waits on. Resolved by a `/research` **subagent**. Use when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
 - **Prototype** (HITL): Raise the fidelity of the discussion by making a cheap, rough, concrete artifact to react to — an outline, a rough take, a stub, or UI/logic code via the /prototype skill. Links the prototype as an asset. Use when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
-- **Grilling** (HITL): Conversation. The default case. Always invoke the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills.
+- **Grilling** (HITL): Conversation via the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills, one question at a time. The default case.
-- **Task** (HITL or AFK): Manual work that must happen before a _decision_ can be made — nothing to decide, prototype, or research, but the discussion is blocked until it's done. Signing up for a service so its API can be judged, provisioning access, moving data so its shape can be seen. This is the one type that _does_ rather than decides — and it earns its place by unblocking a decision, not by delivering the destination. The agent drives it alone where it can (AFK); otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist (HITL). Resolved when the work is done; the answer records what was done and any resulting facts (credentials location, new URLs, row counts) later tickets depend on.
+- **Task** (HITL or AFK): Manual work that must happen before a *decision* can be made — nothing to decide, prototype, or research, but the discussion is blocked until it's done. Signing up for a service so its API can be judged, provisioning access, moving data so its shape can be seen. This is the one type that *does* rather than decides — and it earns its place by unblocking a decision, not by delivering the destination. The agent drives it alone where it can (AFK); otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist (HITL). Resolved when the work is done; the answer records what was done and any resulting facts (credentials location, new URLs, row counts) later tickets depend on.
 
 ## Fog of war
 

skills/in-progress/loop-me/SKILL.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ disable-model-invocation: true
 argument-hint: "A workflow to design, or nothing to go find one"
 ---
 
-Run a stateful `/grilling` session whose only output is **workflow** specs. Use the grilling discipline — relentless, a round of questions at a time, a recommended answer attached to each — aimed at the vocabulary and goal below. Create, edit, and delete specs as the grilling resolves things.
+Run a stateful `/grilling` session whose only output is **workflow** specs. Use the grilling discipline — relentless, one question at a time, a recommended answer attached to each — aimed at the vocabulary and goal below. Create, edit, and delete specs as the grilling resolves things.
 
 ## The loop lens
 

skills/productivity/grilling/SKILL.md

@@ -7,14 +7,6 @@ Interview the user relentlessly until you reach a shared understanding. Map this
 
 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.
 
-Each question should be formatted like so:
-
-```
-❓ **Q1** - **<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.

skills/productivity/grilling/agents/openai.yaml

@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 interface:
   display_name: "Grilling"
-  short_description: "Stress-test thinking a round of questions at a time"
+  short_description: "Stress-test thinking one question at a time"