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Author SHA1 Message Date
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 fde4cd58cf feat(batch-grill-me): granular fact-finding, don't block the round
Fire fact-finding to a sub-agent and treat a running exploration as an
unsettled prerequisite, so only the downstream questions wait — the rest
of the frontier is asked now, instead of the whole next round blocking
behind one lookup. Phrase throughout in terms of the user.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-16 10:01:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 c70cb09193 Add batch-grill-me in-progress skill
A user-invoked interview that walks the design tree in rounds: each round
asks the whole frontier of decisions whose prerequisites are already
settled, then recomputes the frontier from the answers.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-16 09:41:35 +01:00
Matt PocockandGitHub e9fcdf95b4 Merge pull request #572 from mattpocock/to-questionnaire
Add to-questionnaire skill (in-progress)
2026-07-14 19:32:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 7f68c06dcb Cut no-op justification and template the questionnaire structure
Drop the sentence explaining why interrogating the subject fails — the
model already obeys it, so it was paying load to say nothing.

Replace the bulleted document structure with an XML-tagged
<questionnaire-template>, mirroring to-spec's <spec-template>: headings
with prose fill-in guidance and a nested <question-example>.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 19:31:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 bbce2f91d6 Add to-questionnaire skill (in-progress)
A user-invoked skill that turns a decision you can't fully answer into a
Markdown discovery questionnaire to hand to one person async, or fill out
over a meeting.

Its defining move: it grills you about the *send* (who it's going to, what
you need back), never the subject — sidestepping the "I don't know, I don't
know" spiral you'd hit if it interrogated you on the very knowledge you're
offloading. The written questions then target the gap between what the
recipient knows and what you need.

Landed in in-progress/ to shake out over a few real sends before promoting.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 19:28:20 +01:00
5 changed files with 80 additions and 0 deletions
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@@ -9,3 +9,5 @@ Skills that are still being developed. They're not ready to ship — expect roug
- **[writing-shape](./writing-shape/SKILL.md)** — Take a markdown file of raw material and shape it into an article paragraph by paragraph, arguing format choices at each step.
- **[claude-handoff](./claude-handoff/SKILL.md)** — Hand the current conversation off to a fresh background agent that picks up the work immediately, seeded with a handoff summary via `claude --bg`. User-invoked.
- **[setup-ts-deep-modules](./setup-ts-deep-modules/SKILL.md)** — Wire dependency-cruiser into a TypeScript repo so each package is a deep module — implementation hidden in subfolders, reachable only through its entry-point files, tests exercising it through those. User-invoked.
- **[to-questionnaire](./to-questionnaire/SKILL.md)** — Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a Markdown questionnaire for someone else to fill in async, or over a meeting. It grills you about the send (who it's for, what you need back), not the subject. User-invoked.
- **[batch-grill-me](./batch-grill-me/SKILL.md)** — Relentless interview that walks the design tree in rounds instead of one question at a time — each round asks the whole frontier of decisions whose prerequisites are already settled, then recomputes from your answers. User-invoked.
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
---
name: batch-grill-me
description: A relentless interview that asks every frontier question at once, round by round.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
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.
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.
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
interface:
display_name: "Batch Grill Me"
short_description: "Sharpen a plan a round of questions at a time"
policy:
allow_implicit_invocation: false
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
---
name: to-questionnaire
description: Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a questionnaire for someone else to fill in.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
Turn something the user can't answer alone into a **questionnaire** — a Markdown document they hand to one person to fill in async, or fill out together over a meeting. The recipient holds knowledge the user lacks; the questionnaire pulls it out of them.
**Grill the send, not the subject.** Interview the user only about the _send_, which they can always answer: who it goes to, and what they need back. The questions in the document then target the **gap** between what the recipient knows and what the user needs.
1. **Who is it going to?** Ask, in one exchange, the recipient's role, expertise, and relationship to the user. This fixes the questionnaire's tone and how much context it must carry. Done when you know who the recipient is and what they know that the user doesn't.
2. **What do you need back?** Ask, in one exchange, the specific decisions or facts the user can't resolve alone and needs from this person. Done when you have a concrete list of what the user must walk away able to do or decide.
3. **Write the questionnaire.** Draft questions aimed at the gap from steps 12, following the Document structure below. Write it to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) and report the path. Done when the file exists and every item the user named in step 2 is covered by a question.
## Document structure
Frame the document as a **discovery questionnaire**: the user lacks context, the recipient holds it. Order questions most-important-first — async means you may only get one pass — and group them under `##` headings by theme once there are more than a handful. Write it using the template below.
<questionnaire-template>
# <Questionnaire title>
**Purpose:** why this questionnaire exists and the decision riding on it.
**From:** <the user> — **To:** <the recipient> — **How your answers will be used:** <where they go>
## Context
One paragraph orienting a recipient who wasn't in the user's head. Enough to answer well, not a page.
## How to answer
Deadline and rough effort. Partial answers and "I don't know" are useful — flag anything you're unsure of rather than skipping it.
## <Theme heading>
One `##` section per theme. Under each, its questions, most-important-first. Every question is one idea — never compound — with an answer stub directly beneath, and a one-line _why this matters_ only where the question could be misread or invite a throwaway answer.
<question-example>
### What load is the system expected to handle at launch?
_Why this matters: it decides whether we provision for burst traffic now or defer it._
>
</question-example>
## Anything else?
A closing catch-all: anything we didn't ask that we should know?
</questionnaire-template>
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
interface:
display_name: "To Questionnaire"
short_description: "Front-load questions into a doc for someone to answer"
policy:
allow_implicit_invocation: false