interview

Interview

Turns an underspecified request into a confirmed, thought-through scope before a single line is planned or written. It restates and diffs the request, researches the code so its questions are specific, surfaces the unknowns and non-goals, interviews the user only where research falls short, and emits a brief.md that planning consumes.

This SKILL.md is a thin index. Phase procedures live in rules/*.md and load on demand. A full worked run lives in references/interview-example.md.

Contents

• When it runs
• Workflow
• Required reading by phase
• Core principles
• Anti-patterns
• Definition of done

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When it runs

$ARGUMENTS is the request to align on (free text). If $ARGUMENTS is empty, use the current conversation's active request; if there is none, ask what to scope — never interview against a guessed request.

Flag	Default	Meaning
--non-interactive	off	Do not prompt the user. Surface the questions inside brief.md under Open questions, proceed on stated assumptions, and set the readiness verdict. For headless callers that cannot prompt.

This skill is adaptive. When the request is already crisp and research answers the open questions, it asks nothing, writes a one-line pass note plus the brief, and returns ready. It interrupts only for a genuine, load-bearing unknown — see rules/readiness-gate.md.

Relation to aw and ideate (precedence)

• Autonomous-implementation asks ("implement X autonomously", "ship this", /aw) are owned by aw, which runs this interview inside its Phase 0 (default-on for Full tier — see rules/aw-integration.md) — do not also fire standalone; let aw drive.
• Standalone /interview is for the explicit "help me scope this first" moment on non-aw or ambiguous work.
• For solution options, not scope, use /ideate — it diverges and scores; this skill converges on the one scope.

Workflow

Five phases, each with a gate. Do not advance until the gate passes.

Phase	Name	Rule file	Gate
0	Restate & diff	rules/research-grounding.md	Request restated in own words; every delta from the user's words surfaced.
1	Research the ground	rules/research-grounding.md	Affected areas, prior art, patterns, and constraints located in the code.
2	Surface unknowns (gate)	rules/readiness-gate.md, rules/consultative-completeness.md	Every unknown enumerated and classified blocking vs advisory; interview-or-pass decided.
3	Interview	rules/question-design.md	Blocking + high-value unknowns asked in ≤ 2 batched rounds, or skipped (adaptive pass).
4	Confirm & brief	rules/brief-artifact.md	Understanding confirmed; brief.md written; readiness verdict set.

Required reading by phase

Load on demand — do not preload.

Phase	Files
0–1	rules/research-grounding.md
2	rules/readiness-gate.md, rules/consultative-completeness.md
3	rules/question-design.md
4	rules/brief-artifact.md
aw	rules/aw-integration.md — how aw / aw-planner delegate to this skill.

Core principles

1. Research before asking. A question the codebase already answers is noise. Ground every question in what the code shows so it is specific ("reuse PrStatusCache or add a cache?"), not generic ("what do you want?"). See rules/research-grounding.md.
2. Interrupt only for load-bearing unknowns. Classify each unknown blocking vs advisory. Ask about blocking ones; proceed on advisory ones and record the assumption. Silence is the correct output for a crisp request. See rules/readiness-gate.md.
3. Batch the questions. One prioritized round via AskUserQuestion, two at most. Never drip questions one at a time. See rules/question-design.md.
4. Consultative, not stenographic. Capture intent and pressure-test completeness: non-goals, edge cases, success criteria, constraints. This is the "is it thought-through" half. See rules/consultative-completeness.md.
5. Converge, don't diverge. This skill pins down the one thing to build. It hands divergent option-generation to /ideate, adversarial plan review to /critical, and readiness scoring to /confidence. Do not duplicate them.
6. The brief is the deliverable. A confirmed, self-contained brief.md plus a readiness verdict — nothing more. It writes no product code. See rules/brief-artifact.md.

Anti-patterns

• Asking a question the code answers. Fix: research first (Phase 1).
• Dripping questions one at a time across turns. Fix: batch into one AskUserQuestion round.
• Interviewing a request that is already crisp. Fix: honor the adaptive pass — write the brief, return ready, ask nothing.
• Generating solution options. Fix: that is /ideate; this skill converges on scope.
• Adversarially red-teaming an implementation plan. Fix: that is /critical; run it after a plan exists.
• Producing a scored gate verdict. Fix: that is /confidence; this skill elicits the inputs a score needs.
• Writing product code or a plan. Fix: stop at brief.md; hand off to planning.

Definition of done

• Request restated in own words; every delta from the user's words surfaced (Phase 0).
• Affected code areas, prior art, and constraints located (Phase 1).
• Every unknown enumerated and classified blocking vs advisory (Phase 2).
• Blocking + high-value unknowns resolved via ≤ 2 batched rounds, or a clean adaptive pass logged (Phase 3).
• brief.md written to .agent/{branch}/brief.md (re-run updates it in place).
• Readiness verdict set: ready | ready-with-assumptions | blocked.
• One-line summary delivered naming the verdict and pointing at the brief.