One method, two modes

Both modes use the same branch loop: investigate facts, expose the current decision frontier, challenge provisional answers, and continue until the output is confirmed. There is no second grilling skill to invoke.

Quickstart

Install globally:

npx skills@latest add nxxxsooo/deep-grill --skill deep-grill -g -y

Then say deep grill this idea or deep grill this plan. After the first invocation, ordinary replies continue the active session; you do not need to name the skill again.

In the broader loop workflow, deep-grill owns idea clarification and adversarial review. A confirmed Product Brief advances automatically to deep-design.

Native questions

When the active client exposes a native question interface and it is callable now, deep-grill uses it. When that interface is unavailable in the current mode, deep-grill immediately asks the same concise localized prose question, preserves the current frontier and recommendation, and continues from your ordinary reply. It also uses concise numbered prose when the client has no native question interface or you explicitly choose prose.

Product Brief

Discovery mode finishes with a concise, confirmed contract covering the product or offer, target user and context, problem and desired outcome, constraints, non-goals, decisions, evidence and assumptions, success scenarios, and residual risks. It does not begin design or implementation.

The entire skill

This is the full SKILL.md body you install:

Deep Grill

Run one evidence-driven branch loop in either discovery mode or audit mode. Facts belong to the agent; goals, priorities, risk tolerance, taste, and authority belong to the user.

Select The Mode

Use discovery mode when the input is a raw idea, the user asks to be interviewed or clarified, loop supplies work without a ready Product Brief, or materially different approaches depend on a user-owned decision tree. Its output is a confirmed Product Brief.

Use audit mode when the user supplies a formed plan, design, decision, or implied approach and wants autonomous pressure-testing, a verdict, or revisions. Its output is an audit verdict.

If the mode is initially unclear, state and audit the smallest plausible approach. Switch to discovery mode only when continuing would invent a material user-owned decision. Discovery mode may use audit passes between question rounds; the modes share one tree rather than handing work to another grilling skill.

Keep The Session Active

After deep-grill starts, treat each answer to its question round as a continuation of the same session. Reconstruct the current branch tree from the conversation and artifacts, apply the answer, and continue. The user does not need to invoke deep-grill or loop again.

End the session when the user confirms the Product Brief or audit verdict, asks to stop, clearly changes tasks, or authorizes a separate next phase after deep-grill is complete.

Work The Branches

Map material branches in dependency order. The frontier is every branch whose prerequisites are settled.

Investigate factual branches with the available environment, sources, tests, and bounded experiments. For each provisional answer, use the strongest objection and a concrete failure scenario to keep, revise, or reject it. Mark insufficient evidence and provide a validation path instead of inventing facts. An unresolved factual check blocks only dependent branches.

Ask the user only about frontier decisions that the agent cannot own. Recompute the frontier after every answer or evidence change. Prioritize impact, uncertainty, and reversibility; stop at diminishing returns.

Use Native Questions

Before presenting the first user decision, determine from the active client's tool metadata whether its native question interface is callable now, unavailable in the current mode, or unsupported.

• If callable, use one native question call for the round and include as many frontier decisions as the tool supports.
• If unavailable in the current mode or unsupported, ask the same concise localized prose question immediately. Preserve the pending frontier and the recommended option, then continue from the ordinary reply.
• If the user explicitly chooses prose, keep the same frontier and recommendation structure in concise numbered prose.

Each native question and prose fallback asks one decision, offers two or three mutually exclusive options, puts and marks the recommended option first, explains its main tradeoff in one sentence, and preserves free-form input. Do not repeat a successful native question call in Markdown.

Discovery Output

When every material user-owned branch is settled, produce a concise Product Brief with the applicable fields:

Product / offer:
Target user and context:
Problem and desired outcome:
Constraints and must-preserve behavior:
Non-goals:
Confirmed decisions:
Evidence and assumptions:
Success scenarios:
Residual risks:

Ask the user to confirm the brief through the native question interface when callable; otherwise use the same concise localized prose fallback under the same mode rules. The brief is ready for deep-design only after confirmation and when no root product decision remains open.

Audit Output

Report the target, verdict, recommended revisions, supporting evidence, strongest objections, failure scenarios, evidence limits, residual risks, unresolved items, and unexamined scope. Keep one or two bounded user choices inside the audit using the same native question and prose fallback rules. If a decision tree emerges, continue in discovery mode instead of recommending another grilling skill.

Do not implement or otherwise act on a Product Brief or verdict until the user confirms it or separately authorizes the next phase.

The upstream interactive-grilling contract incorporated into discovery mode is preserved in references/grilling-upstream.md.

Update

Installed copies are snapshots. Update a global installation with:

npx skills@latest update deep-grill -g -y

Attribution and license

Discovery mode incorporates the interaction contract from Matt Pocock's grilling. The unmodified source and full attribution are preserved in references/grilling-upstream.md, NOTICE, and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

MIT