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Author SHA1 Message Date
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 a2f9333669 docs: finish the to-prd → to-spec rename in shipped text
Drop the "you may know this document as a PRD" hedge from to-spec and
the local tracker template, switch code-review to issue/spec, bring the
GitHub and GitLab tracker templates in line with the local one, and fix
research.md's dead skills-to-prd link.

CHANGELOG and existing changesets keep the old term where they document
the rename itself.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 17:37:30 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 14b92236dd docs: describe grilling as round-by-round everywhere
The round-by-round rework left the wrappers and callers still promising
a one-question-at-a-time interview. Sync grill-me, grill-with-docs and
triage (docs + skill step), plus grilling's Codex short_description and
the loop-me draft.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 12:37:09 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 950dc79bb0 feat(grilling): bold the question title
The title now carries its own bold alongside the bold Q-number, so the
question line reads as a heading. Sync the docs page and changeset.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 12:33:07 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 781efca60a feat(grilling): lead each question with a question-mark emoji
Prefix the numbered question line with  so questions and their ➡️
recommendations are both scannable. Sync the docs page and changeset.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 12:29:11 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 4b2d9a8a8a docs(grilling): drop the Recommendation label from the question format
The recommendation now stands alone on its arrow line. Sync the docs
page and changeset to match.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 12:28:33 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 a557705dcb docs(grilling): pin the question format and document it
Add the fixed per-question shape (numbered title, body, recommendation
line) to grilling's SKILL.md, sync the docs page, and add a changeset.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-29 12:26:31 +01:00
Matt Pocock 9c470b321d Merge branch 'release/v1.2' of https://github.com/mattpocock/skills into release/v1.2 2026-07-29 12:11:20 +01:00
Matt Pocock f1df19e6b0 fix: correct formatting in SKILL.md for clarity and consistency 2026-07-29 12:11:19 +01:00
Matt Pocock 41283677d6 Merge pull request #682 from mattpocock/wfa-environment-cache
feat(writing-for-agents): add the *cache* leading word for environment truth
2026-07-28 12:18:20 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 d4e8664be2 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>
2026-07-28 12:16:51 +01:00
Matt Pocock 6e742d6441 Merge pull request #679 from mattpocock/graduate-to-questionnaire
Graduate to-questionnaire into the Productivity bucket
2026-07-28 10:03:14 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 ad5ee1e12f feat: graduate to-questionnaire into the productivity bucket
Move `to-questionnaire` out of in-progress into `productivity/` and wire
it up as a promoted skill: plugin.json entry, top-level + Productivity
READMEs under User-invoked, a docs page at
docs/productivity/to-questionnaire.md, and a Standalone route in
ask-matt framing it as the inverse of /grill-me.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-28 09:59:33 +01:00
Matt Pocock fa3b2a6b35 Merge pull request #650 from mattpocock/writing-for-agents-rename
feat!: rename writing-great-skills → writing-for-agents and restructure
2026-07-27 14:30:41 +01:00
33 changed files with 122 additions and 28 deletions
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---
"mattpocock-skills": minor
---
Graduate **`to-questionnaire`** out of `in-progress/` into the **Productivity** bucket, so it ships in the plugin. It turns a decision you can't answer alone into a Markdown questionnaire for the one person who can — filled in async, or worked through together in a meeting.
Its defining move is that it grills you about the **send**, not the subject: a normal grilling session interrogates the topic, which is exactly what you can't answer here, so the interview asks only who the questionnaire is going to and what you need back, then aims every question at the gap between the two.
Now wired as a promoted skill — plugin entry, top-level + Productivity READMEs under **User-invoked**, a docs page at `docs/productivity/to-questionnaire.md`, and a Standalone route in `ask-matt` framing it as the inverse of `/grill-me` (mine someone else, not yourself).
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---
"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.
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---
"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.
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---
"mattpocock-skills": patch
---
Finish the `to-prd``to-spec` rename: "spec" is now the only term in the shipped text.
- **`to-spec`** no longer opens with "you may know this document as a PRD" — the parenthetical is dropped from the skill and its docs page. The local-markdown tracker template drops the same hedge.
- **`code-review`** talks about the originating issue/spec rather than issue/PRD, in its frontmatter description, its two-axis summary, and the spec-source search order. Both READMEs re-synced.
- **The GitHub and GitLab tracker templates** now say "Issues and specs for this repo live as GitHub/GitLab issues" — they had been left on "PRDs" when the local template was updated, so the stale term propagated into every repo they were written into.
- **`docs/engineering/research.md`** pointed at `https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd`, a dead slug for the renamed skill; it now links `to-spec` like the other nineteen docs pages do.
The CHANGELOG and existing changesets still name PRDs where they document the rename itself, which is correct.
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
---
"mattpocock-skills": minor
---
Extend **`writing-for-agents`**' pruning section with a new leading word: **cache**. Single source of truth now reaches past the document into the environment — `package.json` scripts, config files, directory layout, `--help` output are themselves authoritative, so a doc that restates them is a cache of a lookup, earning its load only when the lookup is expensive. The positive target: cache what the agent cannot find by looking (unwritten conventions, the reason behind a choice, gotchas no config confesses), and leave one-file, one-command lookups to the environment, where they cannot go stale.
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@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@
"./skills/productivity/grilling",
"./skills/productivity/handoff",
"./skills/productivity/teach",
"./skills/productivity/to-questionnaire",
"./skills/productivity/writing-for-agents"
]
}
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@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ Skills I use daily for code work.
- **[tdd](./skills/engineering/tdd/SKILL.md)** — Test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop. Builds features or fixes bugs one vertical slice at a time.
- **[domain-modeling](./skills/engineering/domain-modeling/SKILL.md)** — Actively build and sharpen a project's domain model — challenge terms against the glossary, stress-test with edge-case scenarios, and update `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs inline.
- **[codebase-design](./skills/engineering/codebase-design/SKILL.md)** — Shared discipline and vocabulary for designing deep modules: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface, placed at a clean seam, testable through that interface.
- **[code-review](./skills/engineering/code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?), run as parallel sub-agents so neither pollutes the other.
- **[code-review](./skills/engineering/code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/spec?), run as parallel sub-agents so neither pollutes the other.
- **[resolving-merge-conflicts](./skills/engineering/resolving-merge-conflicts/SKILL.md)** — Work through an in-progress git merge or rebase conflict hunk by hunk, resolving by intent traced to each side's primary source, then finish the operation — never `--abort`.
### Productivity
@@ -206,6 +206,7 @@ General workflow tools, not code-specific.
- **[grill-me](./skills/productivity/grill-me/SKILL.md)** — Get relentlessly interviewed about a plan or design until every branch of the decision tree is resolved.
- **[handoff](./skills/productivity/handoff/SKILL.md)** — Compact the current conversation into a handoff document so another agent can continue the work.
- **[teach](./skills/productivity/teach/SKILL.md)** — Teach the user a new skill or concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful teaching workspace.
- **[to-questionnaire](./skills/productivity/to-questionnaire/SKILL.md)** — Turn a decision you can't answer alone into a Markdown questionnaire for the one person who can — filled in async, or together over a meeting. It grills you about the send (who it's for, what you need back), not the subject.
- **[writing-for-agents](./skills/productivity/writing-for-agents/SKILL.md)** — Writing documents for agents: skills, AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, and any doc an agent reaches by a pointer.
**Model-invoked**
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@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ npx skills update grill-with-docs
## What it does
`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.
`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.
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, 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.
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.
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 one question at a time and waits, rather than dumping a questionnaire.
- It asks a round of independent questions and waits, rather than dumping the whole questionnaire at you.
- 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.
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@@ -26,4 +26,4 @@ The defining move is that the reading runs as a **background agent**. You keep w
## Where it fits
A reach-for-it-anytime standalone that feeds the thinking skills: the file it produces is something to grill, plan, or design against, so it sits upstream of work like [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) and [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) rather than in the build chain. For the whole map, see [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt).
A reach-for-it-anytime standalone that feeds the thinking skills: the file it produces is something to grill, plan, or design against, so it sits upstream of work like [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) and [to-spec](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec) rather than in the build chain. For the whole map, see [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt).
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@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ npx skills update to-spec
## What it does
`to-spec` turns the current conversation and your codebase understanding into a spec (you may know this document as a PRD), then publishes it to your issue tracker.
`to-spec` turns the current conversation and your codebase understanding into a spec, then publishes it to your issue tracker.
It does **not** interview you again. By the time you reach for it, the alignment work is done — `to-spec` synthesises what is already known rather than asking a fresh round of questions.
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@@ -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 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.
`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.
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@@ -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 **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.
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.
## 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, 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.
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.
`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.
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@@ -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 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.
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.
### Prefer one question at a time?
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Quickstart:
```bash
npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=to-questionnaire
```
```bash
npx skills update to-questionnaire
```
[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/to-questionnaire)
## What it does
`to-questionnaire` turns a decision you can't settle on your own into a **questionnaire** — a Markdown document you hand to the one person who holds what you're missing, to fill in async or work through together in a meeting.
It grills you about the **send**, never the subject. A normal grilling session interrogates the topic, which is exactly what you can't answer here — that's why you're writing to someone else. So the interview asks only the two things you can always answer: who this is going to, and what you need back from them. The questions in the document are then aimed at the **gap** between the two.
## When to reach for it
You invoke this by typing `/to-questionnaire` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
Reach for this when a decision is blocked on knowledge that lives in someone else's head — a client, a domain expert, a colleague on another team — and you want a document that pulls it out of them in one pass. When the knowledge is in *your* head and just needs sharpening, use [grill-me](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-me) instead; when it's in the codebase, use [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs).
## The send, not the subject
The interview is two exchanges, and it stops there:
- **Who is it going to?** Their role, expertise, and relationship to you. This fixes the tone and how much context the document has to carry — an outside client needs orienting; a teammate does not.
- **What do you need back?** The concrete decisions or facts you can't resolve alone. This becomes the checklist the finished questionnaire is measured against: every item you named has a question aimed at it.
Everything after that is drafting. The output is written to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory.
## The document
It's a **discovery questionnaire**: you lack the context, the recipient holds it. That framing drives its shape — a purpose line and the decision riding on it, a short context section for a recipient who wasn't in your head, and questions ordered **most-important-first**, because async means you may only get one pass. Each question is one idea, never compound, with an answer stub beneath it and a *why this matters* line only where the question could be misread. It closes with a catch-all: anything we didn't ask that we should know?
## It's working if
- It asks you about the recipient and the deliverable, then stops asking — no interrogation of the topic itself.
- Every item you named as "what I need back" is traceable to a question in the file.
- The questions read as aimed at what the *recipient* knows, not as your own open questions copied down.
## Where it fits
`to-questionnaire` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone — it sits at the boundary of your own knowledge, where the next step is another person rather than another skill. Its neighbour is [grill-me](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-me), because the two split on where the answers live: grilling mines you, a questionnaire mines someone else. What comes back typically feeds the main flow at [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs) or [to-spec](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec). When you're unsure which skill fits the moment, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.
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- **Information hierarchy** — the ladder from in-file step, to in-file reference, to disclosed reference behind a pointer. **Progressive disclosure** is the move down that ladder so the top stays legible; **co-location** decides what sits beside each piece once placed.
- **Completion criteria** — the clarity and demand of each step's done-condition, and the **legwork** it drives; the defence against **premature completion**.
- **Leading words** — a compact concept already in the model's pretraining (*tight*, *red*, *tracer bullet*) that the agent thinks with while running the document; hunt restatements a single word can retire.
- **Pruning** — single source of truth, relevance, and the no-op test applied sentence by sentence, against **sediment** and **sprawl**.
- **Pruning** — single source of truth, relevance, and the no-op test applied sentence by sentence, against **sediment** and **sprawl**. Single source of truth reaches past the document into the environment: a doc restating what's already in `package.json`, a config file, or `--help` output is a **cache** of a lookup that was never expensive, and it's the copy that goes stale. Cache what the agent can't find by looking — the unwritten convention, the reason behind a choice.
## Where it fits
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@@ -27,5 +27,5 @@ Model- or user-reachable (rich trigger phrasing so the model can reach for them)
- **[tdd](./tdd/SKILL.md)** — Test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop. Builds features or fixes bugs one vertical slice at a time.
- **[domain-modeling](./domain-modeling/SKILL.md)** — Actively build and sharpen a project's domain model — challenge terms, stress-test with scenarios, update `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs inline.
- **[codebase-design](./codebase-design/SKILL.md)** — Shared discipline and vocabulary for designing deep modules: small interfaces, clean seams, testable through the interface.
- **[code-review](./code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?), run as parallel sub-agents.
- **[code-review](./code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/spec?), run as parallel sub-agents.
- **[resolving-merge-conflicts](./resolving-merge-conflicts/SKILL.md)** — Work through an in-progress git merge or rebase conflict hunk by hunk, resolving by intent traced to each side's primary source, then finish the operation — never `--abort`.
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@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ Off the main flow entirely.
- **`/grill-me`** — the same relentless interview as `/grill-with-docs`, but for when you have **no codebase**. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds no `CONTEXT.md`. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo.
- **`/prototype`** — a small, throwaway program that answers one design question: does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like. Throwaway from day one — keep the answer, delete the code. It's the detour in step 2 of the main flow, but reach for it any time a design question is hard to settle on paper.
- **`/research`** — delegate reading legwork to a **background agent**: it investigates a question against **primary sources**, then leaves a cited Markdown file in the repo. Keep working while it reads. The file it produces is something to take *into* the main flow at `/grill-with-docs` — research feeds the thinking, it doesn't replace it.
- **`/to-questionnaire`** — when the thing blocking you isn't in your head or the codebase but in **someone else's**, this writes them a questionnaire to fill in. It's the inverse of `/grill-me`: instead of interviewing you about the subject, it interviews you about the **send** — who it's going to, what you need back — and aims the questions at the gap. What comes back is material for `/grill-with-docs` or `/to-spec`.
- **`/teach`** — learn a concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace.
- **`/writing-for-agents`** — reference for writing documents agents consume: skills, AGENTS.md, pointed-at docs.
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---
name: code-review
description: Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes — Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match what the originating issue/PRD asked for?). Runs both reviews in parallel sub-agents and reports them side by side. Use when the user wants to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or asks to "review since X".
description: Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes — Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match what the originating issue/spec asked for?). Runs both reviews in parallel sub-agents and reports them side by side. Use when the user wants to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or asks to "review since X".
---
Two-axis review of the diff between `HEAD` and a fixed point the user supplies:
- **Standards** — does the code conform to this repo's documented coding standards?
- **Spec** — does the code faithfully implement the originating issue / PRD / spec?
- **Spec** — does the code faithfully implement the originating issue / spec?
Both axes run as **parallel sub-agents** so they don't pollute each other's context, then this skill aggregates their findings.
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ Look for the originating spec, in this order:
1. Issue references in the commit messages (`#123`, `Closes #45`, GitLab `!67`, etc.) — fetch via the workflow in `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`.
2. A path the user passed as an argument.
3. A PRD/spec file under `docs/`, `specs/`, or `.scratch/` matching the branch name or feature.
3. A spec file under `docs/`, `specs/`, or `.scratch/` matching the branch name or feature.
4. If nothing is found, ask the user where the spec is. If they say there isn't one, the **Spec** sub-agent will skip and report "no spec available".
### 3. Identify the standards sources
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
# Issue tracker: GitHub
Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitHub issues. Use the `gh` CLI for all operations.
Issues and specs for this repo live as GitHub issues. Use the `gh` CLI for all operations.
## Conventions
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
# Issue tracker: GitLab
Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitLab issues. Use the [`glab`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli) CLI for all operations.
Issues and specs for this repo live as GitLab issues. Use the [`glab`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli) CLI for all operations.
## Conventions
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
# Issue tracker: Local Markdown
Issues and specs (you may know a spec as a PRD) for this repo live as markdown files in `.scratch/`.
Issues and specs for this repo live as markdown files in `.scratch/`.
## Conventions
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@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ description: Turn the current conversation into a spec and publish it to the pro
disable-model-invocation: true
---
This skill takes the current conversation context and codebase understanding and produces a spec (you may know this document as a PRD). Do NOT interview the user — just synthesize what you already know.
This skill takes the current conversation context and codebase understanding and produces a spec. Do NOT interview the user — just synthesize what you already know.
The issue tracker and triage label vocabulary should have been provided to you — run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` if not.
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@@ -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 one question 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 a round of questions 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)).
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@@ -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 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.
- **Grilling** (HITL): Conversation. The default case. Always invoke the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills.
- **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
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@@ -9,4 +9,3 @@ 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.
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@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Always pass `-n`/`--name` with a descriptive name (e.g. `--name "Fix login bug"`
Include a "suggested skills" section in the summary, which suggests skills that the agent should invoke.
Do not duplicate content already captured in other artifacts (PRDs, plans, ADRs, issues, commits, diffs). Reference them by path or URL instead.
Do not duplicate content already captured in other artifacts (specs, plans, ADRs, issues, commits, diffs). Reference them by path or URL instead.
Redact any sensitive information, such as API keys, passwords, or personally identifiable information — the summary becomes the agent's prompt.
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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, 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.
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.
## The loop lens
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@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ Reachable only when you type them (Claude Code: `disable-model-invocation: true`
- **[grill-me](./grill-me/SKILL.md)** — Get relentlessly interviewed about a plan or design until every branch of the decision tree is resolved.
- **[handoff](./handoff/SKILL.md)** — Compact the current conversation into a handoff document so another agent can continue the work.
- **[teach](./teach/SKILL.md)** — Teach the user a new skill or concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful teaching workspace.
- **[to-questionnaire](./to-questionnaire/SKILL.md)** — Turn a decision you can't answer alone into a Markdown questionnaire for the one person who can — filled in async, or together over a meeting.
- **[writing-for-agents](./writing-for-agents/SKILL.md)** — Writing documents for agents: skills, AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, and any doc an agent reaches by a pointer.
## Model-invoked
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@@ -7,6 +7,14 @@ 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.
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
interface:
display_name: "Grilling"
short_description: "Stress-test thinking one question at a time"
short_description: "Stress-test thinking a round of questions at a time"
@@ -76,5 +76,6 @@ You win twice: fewer tokens, and a sharper hook for the agent to hang its thinki
## Pruning
- Keep each meaning in a **single source of truth**: one authoritative place, so changing the behaviour is a one-place edit. **Duplication** — the same meaning in more than one place — costs maintenance and tokens, and inflates a meaning's prominence on the ladder past its real rank. (The accidental inverse of a leading word, which repeats a token on purpose, never the meaning.)
- The **environment** is a source of truth too — `package.json` scripts, config files, the directory layout, `--help` output — and a document that restates it is a **cache**: a copy of a lookup, earning its load only when the lookup is expensive. Cache what the agent cannot find by looking: the unwritten convention, the reason behind a choice, the gotcha no config confesses. Leave the one-file, one-command lookups to the environment, where they cannot go stale.
- Check every line for **relevance**: does it still bear on what the document does? A line loses relevance by never bearing on the task (mere exposition, or a branch that should be disclosed) or by going stale as the behaviour or world it describes changes. Shorter documents are easier to keep relevant. Without a pruning discipline the default fate is **sediment**: stale layers that settle because adding feels safe and removing feels risky, until you must core down through them to find what is still live.
- Hunt **no-ops** sentence by sentence: an instruction the model already obeys by default pays load to say nothing. The test — does it change behaviour versus the default? — is model-relative, not reader-relative: two people disagreeing about a no-op disagree about the default, and settle it by running the document, not by debate. When a sentence fails, delete the whole sentence rather than trim words from it. The test also grades leading words: a word too weak to beat the default (_be thorough_ when the agent is already thorough-ish) is a no-op, and the fix is a stronger word (_relentless_), not a different technique.