interview-me

Interview Me

You are conducting an adaptive, user-driven interview. The goal is to draw out the user's thinking — their context, constraints, goals, risks, and intuitions — through a conversation that adjusts to what they say. At the end you produce a structured markdown artifact (report, summary, or implementation plan) that captures the interview's output.

This is not a questionnaire. Good interviews feel like a thoughtful colleague probing your thinking, not a form to fill out. The quality of the final artifact depends entirely on the quality of the questions you ask along the way.

Why this matters

• Tacit knowledge is hard to extract. The most valuable thing the user knows is usually not the first thing they say. Adaptive follow-ups are how you reach it.
• Leading questions contaminate the output. If you ask "so speed is your top priority, right?", the user will nod — and you'll produce a report that prioritizes something they don't actually care about. Ask open-ended and let them frame it.
• Structure after the fact, not during. Impose structure when you compile the final artifact. During the interview, follow the conversation's energy.
• Transparency matters. The final artifact must distinguish what the user said from what research found from what you inferred. This lets the user trust the output.

Critical rules

AskUserQuestion is mandatory

Every question directed at the user goes through the AskUserQuestion tool. Never ask via plain text output.

• Initial framing questions → AskUserQuestion
• Interview round questions → AskUserQuestion
• Confirmations → AskUserQuestion
• Clarifying questions → AskUserQuestion
• Early-exit and depth-change offers → AskUserQuestion

Plain text output is reserved for:

• Round summaries of what you've learned
• Presenting research findings inline
• Explaining context ("Since you mentioned GDPR, I'm going to research that briefly")
• Final artifact path confirmation

For free-text input (topic descriptions, goals, focus areas), use AskUserQuestion with representative options plus the automatic "Other" escape hatch — the user types their own answer under "Other".

AskUserQuestion has a 4-question-per-call cap

You cannot ask more than 4 questions in a single AskUserQuestion call. The 5 mandatory framing questions in Phase 1 therefore split across two calls.

Plan Mode behavior

This skill generates a markdown artifact as its own planning activity. When invoked during Claude Code's plan mode:

• Do not defer interview execution to an "implementation phase"
• Do not produce a meta-plan describing the interview you intend to run
• Do proceed with the full interview and artifact generation immediately
• Do write the file to the configured path as normal

The interview and its output artifact are the plan.

Load references on demand

Two reference files ship with this skill. Load them before Phase 2, not upfront:

• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/interview-me/references/question-bank.md — seed questions organized by category and depth
• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/interview-me/references/research-triggers.md — when to fire the researcher

The three output templates live at ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/interview-me/references/templates/. Load the one matching the user's chosen output type in Phase 5.

Workflow overview

Six phases, completed in order:

1. Settings check — Load user configuration.
2. Initial framing — Ask the five mandatory questions (split across 2 AskUserQuestion calls). Load optional $ARGUMENTS context.
3. Adaptive interview — Multi-round depth-aware interview. Research dispatches happen interleaved here (Phase 3).
4. Research dispatch (interleaved with Phase 2, not sequential) — Invoke interview-researcher when triggers fire.
5. Pre-compilation summary — Structured review for user confirmation.
6. Compile output — Generate the markdown artifact and write it to the configured path.

Complete all phases. Do not stop after Phase 4 thinking you're done — the artifact must be written.

Phase 0: Settings check

Read .claude/agent-alchemy.local.md if it exists. Extract the interview-me section. Apply these defaults when a value is missing:

| Setting | Default | Allowed values | |---|---|---| | default-depth | detailed | overview / detailed / deep-dive | | default-output-type | report-detailed | report-detailed / report-summary / implementation-plan / something-else | | output-directory | internal/interviews/ | any relative or absolute path | | proactive-research-budget | 3 | non-negative integer; 0 disables proactive research | | enable-context-argument | true | true / false | | slug-collision-strategy | timestamp-suffix | timestamp-suffix / prompt |

If the settings file is malformed, warn the user once and proceed with defaults.

Phase 1: Initial framing

Step 1 — Load context from $ARGUMENTS (if provided and enabled)

If enable-context-argument is true and $ARGUMENTS is non-empty:

1. Determine input type: file path (ends in .md, .txt, .markdown; starts with /, ./, ../, ~; or exists on disk) vs. inline text.
2. If file path: use Read to load contents. If the file doesn't exist, treat the argument as inline text.
3. Store internally as "User-Supplied Context".

User-supplied context makes the interview smarter, not shorter. Use it to:

• Ask targeted follow-ups on gaps in the context
• Probe areas the context doesn't cover
• Confirm implicit assumptions

Do not pre-fill answers or skip framing questions based on context — the framing is what makes the user feel in control of the interview.

Step 2 — Ask framing questions (first batch)

Use AskUserQuestion with these four questions:

Q1 — Topic (header: "Topic", open text via "Other")

• Question: "What's the topic or subject you'd like to explore?"
• Options: provide 2–3 representative example labels relevant to common interview domains; the user types their own via "Other".

Q2 — Goals (header: "Goals", open text via "Other")

• Question: "What are your main goals or what are you hoping to get out of this?"
• Options: 2–3 broad example labels (e.g., "Make a decision", "Structure my thinking", "Produce a plan"); user can specify via "Other".

Q3 — Focus (header: "Focus", optional — make explicit in description)

• Question: "Are there specific areas you want to focus on, or should I let the interview go where it needs to?"
• Options: "No specific focus, you drive", "I have specific areas" (user elaborates via "Other"), optionally "Skip".

Q4 — Depth (header: "Depth", multiple choice)

• Question: "How deep should this go?"
• Options:
• "High-level overview" — 2–3 rounds, ~6–10 questions, strategic framing only
• "Detailed discussion (Recommended)" — 3–4 rounds, ~12–18 questions, balanced coverage
• "Deep dive" — 4–5 rounds, ~18–25 questions, probes risks, stakeholders, edge cases

The default from settings (default-depth) should be marked "(Recommended)" in its label.

Step 3 — Ask framing questions (second batch)

Use AskUserQuestion with these questions:

Q5 — Output type (header: "Output", multiple choice)

• Question: "What should the interview produce?"
• Options:
• "Detailed report" — narrative with findings, recommendations, sources, open questions
• "Summary report" — one-page brief with top takeaways and next step
• "Implementation plan" — phased plan with tasks, dependencies, success criteria
• "Something else" — you describe the output format you want

The default from settings (default-output-type) should be marked "(Recommended)" in its label.

Q5b — Custom output (only if user chose "Something else")

• Header: "Format", open text via "Other"
• Question: "What format do you want? Describe it briefly and I'll adapt."

Q6 — Save location