manastalukdar/ai-devstudio/ask-matt

Ask Matt

You don't remember every skill, so ask.

A flow is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one main flow, and two on-ramps merge onto it. Everything else is standalone, or a vocabulary layer that runs underneath.

The main flow: idea → ship

The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.

1. `/grill-with-docs` sharpens the idea by interview. Start here whenever you are working in a working directory: it's stateful, retaining what it learns in GLOSSARY.md and ADRs. (No working directory? Use /grill-me instead. Both run the same /grilling primitive; grill-with-docs is the one that leaves a paper trail.)
2. Branch: can you settle every question in conversation? If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by `/handoff` in both directions:

• `/handoff` out, open a fresh session,
• `/prototype` to answer the question with throwaway code,
• `/handoff` back what you learned.

1. Branch: is this a multi-session build?

• Yes → `/to-spec` (synthesize the thread into a spec), then `/to-tickets` to split it into tracer-bullet tickets with blocking edges. Then:
• `/implement` per ticket, clearing context between each one; or
• `/implement-spec` for the whole spec in one orchestrated run (parallel implementer subagents across the frontier).
• No → `/implement` right here.

Either way, code is built driving `/tdd` and closes with `/code-review``. When the work goes up as a PR, /pr** shapes the body.

1. `/retro` closes the loop — looks back and suggests changes to the agent's environment.

Context hygiene

Keep steps 1–3 in one unbroken context window (don't compact or clear until after /to-tickets). Each /implement then starts fresh. The limit is the smart zone (~150k tokens): if a session approaches it before /to-tickets, /compact at the nearest phase boundary.

On-ramps

• Bugs and requests piling up → `/triage`: moves issues through triage roles and produces agent-ready issues for /implement.
• Something's broken → `/diagnosing-bugs`: for hard bugs — refuses to theorise until it has a tight feedback loop, then fixes with a regression test.
• A huge, foggy effort → `/wayfinder`: charts a shared map of decision tickets and resolves them one at a time until the way is clear.

Codebase health

• `/improve-codebase-architecture`: surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one generates an idea to take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs.

Vocabulary underneath

Two model-invoked references beneath the other skills:

• `/domain-modeling`: sharpen the project's domain language, challenge fuzzy terms, record hard-to-reverse decisions as ADRs.
• `/codebase-design`: deep-module vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) for designing a module's shape.

Phase boundaries

At a phase boundary you have five options:

• Continue: stay put. Costs nothing, loses nothing.
• `/clear`: empty the window when nothing here matters to what's next.
• `/handoff`: writes a portable markdown file — use for a new harness, new directory, a colleague, or forking a side task mid-phase.
• Subagent: send a tightly-scoped task to its own window.
• `/compact`: compress this context and seed a fresh session — the default at the bottom of the tree.

Standalone

Off the main flow entirely:

• `/grill-me`: same interview as /grill-with-docs, but stateless — no working directory needed.
• `/grilling`: the interview primitive itself — use directly when you want the interview with no wrapper.
• `/prototype`: throwaway code that answers one design question.
• `/research`: delegate reading legwork to a background agent; produces a cited Markdown file.
• `/to-questionnaire`: turns a decision into a Markdown questionnaire for async handoff to a domain expert.
• `/wizard`: generates an interactive bash wizard for manual human-only steps.
• `/wait-what`: re-pitches the last unclear message in plain English using GLOSSARY.md vocabulary.
• `/teach`: learn a concept over multiple sessions using the current directory as a stateful workspace.
• `/writing-for-agents`: reference for writing skills, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md.

Token Optimization

Expected range: 50–150 tokens (this skill is a guide read — no file I/O required)

Patterns used: Early exit (stateless reference; returns immediately after presenting the map)

Ported from [mattpocock/skills](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills) with attribution.