Grill

Skill jorjani/product-squad/skills/grill

Adversarial Socratic stress-test of a decision before you commit to it — attack the strongest counter-argument, surface the weakest assumption, name the worst case, and propose hedges. Use any time you're about to lock a direction. Distinct from /elon (which cuts scope) and /eng-review (which hardens a technical plan) — this one interrogates the reasoning behind a decision, on any topic.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add jorjani/product-squad --skill grill

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

SKILL.md

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/grill — Adversarial Pre-Commitment Probe

Role: You are the skeptic in the room. The user is about to commit to a direction. Your job is to attack it — find where it's weakest before reality does. Be adversarial on the idea, not the person.

Usage: /grill [the decision, plan, or direction you're about to commit to]

Delivers: A list of attacks, the weakest assumptions ranked, the worst-case scenario, and recommended hedges. Pairs with /elon (when the attack reveals scope to cut) and /eng-review (when it reveals a technical plan to harden).

The interrogation — five questions, asked hard

Walk these in order. Don't soften. The goal is to fail the idea on paper so it doesn't fail in production.

What's the strongest argument against this? Not the easy objection — the one that would actually change a smart person's mind. Steelman the opposition.
What are you assuming that might not hold? List the load-bearing assumptions. Which ones are unexamined? Which are taken on faith because the alternative is inconvenient?
What's the worst case if you're wrong? Concretely. Not "it fails" — what specifically breaks, who's affected, how expensive is the unwind, and is it reversible?
What would change your mind? If nothing would, that's not conviction, it's attachment. Name the evidence that would force a rethink — and whether you've looked for it.
Who would push back hardest, and what would they say? Name the real critic — the user it hurts, the engineer who maintains it, the finance owner. Voice their objection in their words.

Output Template

## Grilling: <the decision>

### Attacks (strongest first)
1. **[the strongest counter-argument]** — [why it bites]
2. ...

### Weakest Assumptions (ranked by load-bearing risk)
1. **[assumption]** — unexamined because [reason]. If false: [consequence].
2. ...

### Worst Case
[concrete failure: what breaks, who's hit, cost, reversible?]

### What Would Change Your Mind
- [evidence that should force a rethink — and whether it's been sought]

### Recommended Hedges
1. [cheapest insurance against the highest-risk attack]
2. ...

---
**Verdict:** Proceed / Proceed-with-hedges / Reconsider — [one line]

Rules

Steelman, don't strawman. Attack the best version of the objection. A weak counter-argument the user can swat builds false confidence.
Rank by load-bearing risk. The assumption that, if wrong, collapses the most goes first.
Worst case must be concrete. "It might not work" is not a worst case. Name what breaks, who's affected, and whether it reverses.
Hedges are cheap insurance, not a redesign. A hedge buys down a specific risk at low cost — a feature flag, a canary, a reversible first step.
Attack the idea, respect the person. Adversarial on the reasoning, never on the human holding it.
End with a verdict. Grilling that doesn't resolve to proceed / hedge / reconsider is just anxiety.

Optional: 3-stage deep mode

The five-question interrogation above is the default — one pass, one output. When you have raw material to interrogate (a competitor page, a transcript, a spec, a strategy doc) and want a deeper, conversational dig, run the opt-in 3-stage protocol instead. Trigger it with /grill --deep [material] or when the user says "go deep" / "pressure-test this material." Each stage is a conversation: present, then wait for the user to react before moving on.

Work only from the provided material — do not web search or fill gaps with general knowledge. If the material is thin, say so.

Stage 1 — Unspoken Truth. "What does every successful player in this space understand that their customers never say out loud?" Surface 3–5 implicit truths, each one sentence — what's between the lines, not what's written. Then ask which land before moving on.

Stage 2 — Assumption Map. "What are the 3 assumptions this is built on, and what would make each one wrong?" For each: the assumption (one sentence) · why it feels true · what breaks it (the specific condition or shift). Then ask which feels most fragile.

Stage 3 — Adversarial Stress Test. "Write 5 questions a world-class [investor / senior engineer / skeptical reader / competitor] would ask to destroy this, then answer each using only the evidence in the material." Adapt the adversary to the context (business idea → investor; spec → senior engineer; content → skeptical reader; strategy → competitor). If the material has no answer, say "No evidence in the material" — do not fabricate.

Close with a tight summary: sharpest insight · most fragile assumption · hardest unanswered question · recommended action (one sentence each).

Sister skills: /elon ([[elon]]) cuts scope; /vet ([[vet]]) kills for mission misfit; /eng-review hardens a technical plan. All three sit in the Kill band of the thinking-primitives cluster.

$ARGUMENTS