---
name: grill-me
description: Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea. Use when the user wants to stress-test their thinking, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases.
depends: []
license: MIT
source: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/6654f6b60cd9d5be8b54c6fafe44346dabeb3b76/skills/productivity/grilling/SKILL.md
source_commit: 6654f6b60cd9d5be8b54c6fafe44346dabeb3b76
source_sha256: 10ff989e7498b23b5acb49d5048f11dcd906757d2f79c5cdf8a00001381296f2
fetched: 2026-09-02
---
<!--
  Third-party skill, used verbatim under the MIT licence.
  Author: Matt Pocock — https://github.com/mattpocock/skills
  Source: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/6654f6b60cd9d5be8b54c6fafe44346dabeb3b76/skills/productivity/grilling/SKILL.md
  Source: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/6654f6b60cd9d5be8b54c6fafe44346dabeb3b76/skills/productivity/grill-me/SKILL.md
  Pinned commit: 6654f6b60cd9d5be8b54c6fafe44346dabeb3b76 (fetched 2026-09-02 via raw.githubusercontent.com)
  sha256 of the fetched file: 10ff989e7498b23b5acb49d5048f11dcd906757d2f79c5cdf8a00001381296f2
  Note: upstream `grill-me/SKILL.md` is a 7-line stub that says `Call the Skill tool with "grilling"`; this file carries the `grilling` body under the key `grill-me` so it is usable standalone. Body below is byte-identical to upstream `grilling/SKILL.md` after the frontmatter.

  MIT License
  
  Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock
  
  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
  in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
  to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
  copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
  furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
  
  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
  copies or substantial portions of the Software.
  
  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
  IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
  FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
  AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
  LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
  OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
  SOFTWARE.
-->

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.

Format a round like so:

```
❓ **Q1** - **<question title>**: <question body, might be multiple paragraphs, including multiple choices>

➡️ <your recommended answer>

---

❓ **Q2** - **<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.

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.