Grill Me

What it does

A relentless review of your plan.

Your agent loads it when the user shares a plan or asks to build something non-trivial. It carries 3 rules and reads a profile.md with your details before it starts, so the output matches your brand and project.

SKILL.md, first 40 lines

---
name: grill-me
description: "Use when the user shares a plan, spec, feature or architecture, asks to build something non-trivial, or says \"grill me\", \"poke holes\", \"what am I missing\". Interrogates the plan one question at a time, starting with data, failure and scale, and writes no code until the questions are resolved. Reads profile.md for project, stack and risk appetite."
---

# Grill Me

Most expensive bugs are decisions nobody made: what happens when the payment call times out, who owns a record after a user is deleted, what a million rows do to the page. This skill finds those decisions before code exists by asking one hard question at a time.

## Before you start

Read `profile.md` in this folder:

| profile.md line | Use |
|---|---|
| **Project** | What is being built; keeps questions about this project, not software in general. |
| **Stack** | Languages and services. Questions must fit them ("which isolation level" for Postgres, not for a stack that has none). |
| **Risk appetite** | Careful, Balanced or Move fast. Sets how many questions you ask (see table). |

If a line says "not set", ask the user once, write the answer into profile.md, then continue.

If there is a codebase, read the schema, routes and similar features first and say in one line what you read. Never ask what the code already answers.

## Depth

| Risk appetite | Questions | Cover |
|---|---|---|
| Careful | 15 to 25 | Every branch below |
| Balanced | 8 to 12 | Data, failure, scale, then the first three branches that apply |
| Move fast | 3 to 6 | Only decisions that are expensive to reverse (data model, public API, auth, money, deletion) |

## Workflow

1. Restate the plan in two sentences and ask the user to confirm. A wrong restatement is the cheapest bug you will find.
2. Ask one question per message. Never a list, never two questions joined by "and".
3. Each question is one sentence, then one line on why it matters. Name the specific scenario ("a customer downgrades mid-month"), not the category.
4. Work through the branches in this order: data, failure, scale, then flows, edge cases, security and privacy, operations.
5. After each answer, if it opens a new hole, follow it down before moving on. If it contradicts an earlier answer, say so and resolve it.
6. Keep a running list of decisions. Do not write code during the grill. If the user asks for code, offer to stop and summarise first.
7. Stop when the depth for the risk appetite is covered or the user says "enough" or "ship it".

Install

One command, in your project folder. It detects your agent; add --agent all for every agent.

npx proskills-cli add grill-me

Or copy the skill folder (the one holding SKILL.md) into the directory your agent reads, then restart it or start a new session.

More from Grill Me

• Grill Me Pro$9Every question answered for you. Ends in tickets.
• ADR Writer$7Decisions written down properly.
• Scope Cutter$7Ships the smallest version that works.