grill-me

A relentless interview that turns a loose idea into decisions you can defend.

What grill-me does

grill-me makes the agent interview you about an idea until there is nothing left to assume. You do not need a plan to start; the session exists to produce one. It works on anything you can talk through: a feature, a product direction, a business decision, or a piece of writing.

It is part of Matt Pocock's skills collection, one of the most-starred skill repos on GitHub. The skill itself is tiny: it hands off to a shared skill called grilling, which holds the interview rules. grill-me writes no files and keeps no state. The only output is a clearer version of the idea.

Use it when

You have an idea worth taking seriously but have not worked out what it involves.
You want an agent to find the decisions you have been making without noticing.
The subject is not code: pricing, a launch plan, an essay outline.

Skip it when

You can already specify the thing precisely. There is nothing left to grill.
The open question can only be answered by seeing something (layout, feel). Build a throwaway prototype instead.

How it works

The agent maps your idea as a design tree: every decision branches into the decisions that depend on it.
It asks in rounds. Each round contains every question whose prerequisites are already settled, numbered, with the agent's recommended answer under each one. Replying "yes" accepts the recommendation.
Your answers settle branches and unlock the next round. A question that depends on something still open waits for a later round.
Facts are the agent's job: if a question needs something it can look up, it sends a sub-agent to find it instead of asking you. Decisions stay with you.
The session ends when every branch has been visited, and the agent does nothing with the result until you confirm you reached a shared understanding.

How to install grill-me

Claude Code

claude plugin install mattpocock-skills@claude-plugins-official

Installs the whole collection and updates itself.

Codex

codex plugin marketplace add mattpocock/skills
codex plugin add mattpocock-skills@mattpocock

Gemini CLI

gemini skills install https://github.com/mattpocock/skills.git --path skills/productivity

Cursor, OpenCode, Windsurf and others

npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills -a cursor

Replace cursor with your agent, or leave out -a to choose interactively.

Pick one install method per agent. Installing the plugin and the npx copy gives you every skill twice.

Prompts to try

/grill-me I want to add team accounts to my SaaS
/grill-me Should I move my blog from WordPress to a static site?
/grill-me I'm planning a paid newsletter for indie game developers

Tips and gotchas

Start in a fresh conversation, not on top of a plan an agent already wrote.
Leave plan mode off. It makes the agent hurry towards a plan when you want it to keep asking.
Do not just answer "agreed" forty times. The author's own warning: a session with no pushback from you produces a plan you nodded at, not one you decided.
"I don't know" is a real answer. A question you cannot answer usually means you should prototype, not guess.
Two hundred questions usually means the scope is too big. Ask the agent to split the work first, then grill each piece.
Prefer one question at a time? Add "When grilling, ask one question at a time." to your global CLAUDE.md.
Use your strongest model. Good questions depend on the model knowing how systems break.

FAQ

Why doesn't grill-me start automatically?

Its SKILL.md sets disable-model-invocation: true, so the agent never reaches for it on its own. You start it by typing /grill-me followed by your idea.

How many questions will it ask?

Count rounds, not questions. The author describes forty-odd questions across four rounds as an ordinary session. It ends when no unsettled decision is left.

What is the difference between grill-me and grill-with-docs?

Both run the same interview. grill-me needs no repository and writes nothing. grill-with-docs reads your codebase and records what it learns in GLOSSARY.md and architecture decision records.

Is grill-me free?

Yes. The collection is open source under the MIT license.

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This page summarises the project's own SKILL.md and README, checked on 2026-10-16. Star count from GitHub on 2026-10-16. Commands change between releases, so check the repository if one fails. Written by Skillary; not affiliated with Matt Pocock. See how we review skills.