Asteria: You saw that new skill 'grill-me' that's supposed to stress-test your plans before you build?
Draco: Yeah, I was looking at it. The idea is it interviews you relentlessly about a plan until you've resolved the decision tree.
Asteria: Right. And it's not just asking random questions — it's got recommended answers based on the context.
Draco: Exactly. Although it's interesting that the author, Matt Pocock, actually recommends 'domain-model' over 'grill-me' now for most planning workflows.
Asteria: That's a good point. So 'grill-me' used to be the front of the planning chain, but now it's more of a narrower pressure-test when you just want the agent to push back on your plan.
Draco: Makes sense. The recommended workflow now starts with 'domain-model', then 'to-prd', 'to-issues', and 'tdd'. grill-me is still useful when you want a lighter interview skill.
Asteria: I can see that. Before writing a PRD or asking an agent to implement a feature, grill-me could be really useful.
Draco: Yeah, or when several design choices depend on each other. It's like a design sanity check.
Asteria: The fact that it can inspect the codebase instead of just asking you questions is a big plus. Although, I wonder how well it handles cases where the codebase is complex or has a lot of legacy code.
Draco: That's a good point. I'd be curious to see some real-world examples of how it performs in those situations.
Asteria: Yeah, me too. Although, the fact that Matt Pocock has 154K stars on his skills repo is a good sign.
Draco: Right. Okay, so let's say you're planning a new feature. When would you actually use grill-me in that process?
Asteria: I'd use it before committing to a data model or API shape, just to make sure I'm not missing anything critical.
Draco: That makes sense. And it's interesting that 'grill-with-docs' is the newer skill that not only questions your plan but also creates docs like ADRs and a glossary as you go.
Asteria: Yeah, that's a nice evolution. Although, I think 'grill-me' still has its place when you just want a straightforward interview without the extra doc generation.
Draco: Exactly. It's like having a simpler, more focused tool for specific situations.
Asteria: So, have you tried 'grill-me' or 'grill-with-docs' yourself?
Draco: Not yet, but I'm planning to. The idea of having an agent that can push back on my plans is really appealing.
Asteria: Same here. Alright, I'll drop the link to the repo in the show notes. It's 'mattpocock/skills' on GitHub.
Draco: Thanks. I'll check it out.
Asteria: That's a wrap for today's episode. Thanks for geeking out with me, Draco!