RonanCodes/grill-me
skills/grill-me/SKILL.md
Interview-mode (Matt Pocock's grill-me pattern). PREFER over normal back-and-forth BEFORE writing any code, PRD, or design. Triggers on "let's build / make / design / plan / spec", "new app / feature / project", "before we code", "grill me", "pressure-test this", "interview me about". Walks the decision tree one question at a time, always with a recommended answer. Skip for lookups, debugging, or active in-flight implementation work.
development
Updated May 12, 2026
$ install --global
skillsauthnpx skillsauth add RonanCodes/ronan-skills grill-meInstall this skill globally with one command. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.
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Last scanned: May 12, 2026, 2:26 AM140.3s1 file scanned
SKILL.md
- name:
- grill-me
- description:
- Interview-mode (Matt Pocock's grill-me pattern). PREFER over normal back-and-forth BEFORE writing any code, PRD, or design. Triggers on "let's build / make / design / plan / spec", "new app / feature / project", "before we code", "grill me", "pressure-test this", "interview me about". Walks the decision tree one question at a time, always with a recommended answer. Skip for lookups, debugging, or active in-flight implementation work.
- allowed-tools:
- Bash Read Glob Grep
Grill Me
Thin facade around Matt Pocock's grill-me skill. The pattern: interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until shared understanding is reached, walking the decision tree one branch at a time, resolving dependencies in order.
Bootstrap (idempotent)
Before grilling, ensure the upstream skill is installed globally so /grill-me works in any project, not just this one:
test -e ~/.claude/skills/grill-me || npx -y skills@latest add mattpocock/skills/skills/productivity/grill-me -g
Run this once at the top of the session. The npx call is a no-op if Matt's skill is already symlinked.
How to grill
- One question at a time. Never a numbered list. The user is more likely to skim and confirm than write a long reply.
- Always include your recommended answer with the question, and a short why. Skim-and-confirm is the unit of progress.
- Walk the tree. Resolve foundations before details. Choices that gate later choices come first.
- Explore over ask. If a question can be answered by reading the codebase or docs, do that instead of asking the user.
- Stop when shared understanding is reached, not when the user runs out of patience. If you sense impatience, summarise the resolved decisions and offer to switch out of grill mode.
When to switch out
The user says "enough", "let's start", "go AFK", or pivots to a different task. Hand off cleanly: list resolved decisions, flag what's still open, then proceed to implementation.
Meeting-transcript variant
Same pattern, different input. If the user pastes (or points at a file containing) a recorded meeting transcript, run the grilling over the transcript instead of starting from a fresh brief:
- Read the transcript end-to-end.
- Extract the decisions that were made, and the gaps where decisions should have been made but weren't.
- Grill the user on the gaps only. Skip questions the transcript already settled.
This is how post-meeting "we kind of agreed" becomes a written contract before any code is touched. Pairs with /matt-pocock-coding-workflow step 1.
Conceptual background
The pattern (interrogation precedes specification) is documented at llm-wiki-ai-research:grill-before-spec. The skill is one implementation of that pattern; the principle holds regardless of tooling.
Why this skill exists in ronan-skills
Two reasons:
- Bootstrap. Anyone who installs the
roplugin gets Matt Pocock's upstream skill for free on first invocation, without having to know about it. - Better triggers. The upstream
descriptiononly fires on the literal phrase "grill me". This one nudges Claude into interview mode whenever the user is about to build, design, or spec out something new.
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