Interview until there is a shared understanding and nothing is left assumed. The decisions form a tree: every decision branches into the decisions that hang off it. Work the tree in rounds.
The rules
| Id | Rule | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| GRILL-1 | Rounds over the frontier | The frontier is every decision whose prerequisites are settled. Ask the whole frontier in one round: number each question, give a recommended answer, word the question so "yes" accepts the recommendation. A question that depends on another one still open waits for the next round. |
| GRILL-2 | Facts are the agent's job | Anything the filesystem, the repository, a document or a tool can answer is looked up, never asked. A running lookup is an unsettled prerequisite: ask the rest of the frontier now, hold only the questions downstream of it. |
| GRILL-3 | The session ends when the frontier is empty | Every branch visited, nothing silently assumed. Act on nothing until the decider confirms the shared understanding. Each settled decision goes into the plan's Decisions table (PLAN-7) or, when it is hard to reverse and surprising, a decision record (DECIDE-1); when there is no plan, the conversation summary. |
A round
Q1. <title>: <the question, with the options when there are several>
Recommended: <answer>. Yes accepts it.
Q2. : Recommended: .
Plain text, no emoji, no decoration. After the answers, recompute the frontier: settled
decisions unblock the questions that depended on them. Ask the next round.
## What a good question does
- It separates a decision (the decider's) from a fact (yours to find).
- It names the consequence of each option in one line, tagged Verified, Measured or Inferred
(EVID-1).
- It is specific enough that "yes" is an answer.
## Companion skills
| Need | Skill |
|---|---|
| Where the settled decisions go | plan-project, decision-records |
| The vocabulary for interface and seam questions | deep-modules |
| Calibrating the consequences you state | evidence |