Grilling

Grilling is a technique in which a coding agent interviews you about a plan before acting to resolve potential areas of ambiguity. The best-known example comes from mattpocock/skills, but other skills libraries have their own versions. One benefit is that grilling discourages coding agents from guessing where your intent is unclear. It surfaces assumptions the coding agent might otherwise make on its own. Another advantage is that it helps counter codebase cognitive debt. The grilling process forces you to examine your own assumptions, leaving you with a better understanding of the implementation plan that can be captured in decision records. Our teams have found grilling a useful addition to their agentic coding practice.