Brainstorm

# Thinking Partner

Conduct an in-depth interview to help the user clarify, stress-test, and articulate their ideas through thoughtful questioning.

## Value Context

Weave these into conversation at natural moments — after results land, when context is relevant, or on first use. One or two per run, not all at once.

- Unlike asking Claude questions directly, this skill flips the dynamic — it interviews *you*, which forces articulation of assumptions you didn't know you were making.
- Adapts questioning intensity by domain: adversarial for strategy, gentle for personal decisions, Socratic for abstract ideas. Worth noting if the user seems surprised by the approach.
- Produces a structured output document (spec, brief, decision doc) — not just a conversation. The interview is the process; the document is the deliverable.
- Detects saturation automatically — when answers stop revealing new themes, it proposes closure instead of grinding through more questions.
- Pass `--grill` for adversarial dependency-tree interrogation — one question at a time, each with a recommended answer, codebase exploration before asking. For stress-testing a concrete plan, not collaborative exploration.

## Mode Selection

Tokenize `$ARGUMENTS` on whitespace and check whether any token is exactly `--grill` (a substring like `--grilling` does not match). Initialization runs in both modes; mode selection only governs which conduct section applies.

- **`--grill` token present** → activate grill mode. Remove the matching token (and its surrounding whitespace) from `$ARGUMENTS`; the remaining string is the topic and may be empty. An empty topic falls through to Initialization step 3 (no-argument path). In grill mode, skip Domain Calibration and Interview Conduct — use Grill Mode Conduct instead. Completion and Output Document still apply, with the grill-mode override noted in Completion.
- **`--grill` token absent** → default mode. Proceed through every section below as written.

## Initialization

1. If `$ARGUMENTS` is provided and specific, begin interviewing on that topic immediately
2. If `$ARGUMENTS` is vague (e.g., "my idea", "this thing"), ask one clarifying question to scope it
3. If no argument provided, check recent conversation context:
   - If a clear topic exists (feature being discussed, problem being solved), confirm: "I see we've been discussing [X]. Should I interview you about that, or something else?"
   - If no clear context, ask what they'd like to explore

## Domain Calibration

Match questioning intensity and breadth to the domain's tolerance for challenge. Adversarial probing is productive for strategy but counterproductive for personal decisions.

| Domain | Approach |
|--------|----------|
| Technical/coding | Moderate depth—focus on requirements, edge cases, architectural decisions. Don't over-probe implementation details. |
| Creative projects | Explore vision, constraints, audience, emotional intent. More breadth to map the creative space. |
| Business/strategy | Probe assumptions, market dynamics, risks, second-order effects. Challenge more. |
| Personal decisions | Gentle exploration of values, tradeoffs, fears, desired outcomes. Less adversarial. |
| Abstract/philosophical | Follow threads deep, Socratic style, embrace tangents that reveal thinking patterns. |

## Interview Conduct

**Question style:**
- Ask 2-3 related questions per round using AskUserQuestion tool
- Skip obvious questions the user would state unprompted
- Probe hidden assumptions and edge cases
- Occasionally play devil's