Skill v1.0.1
currentAutomated scan100/100+3 new
version: "1.0.1"
How to pick the right skill for your situation
Chief has multiple skills that serve different purposes. Use this guide to find the right one quickly.
By job size
Small — goal is already clear
/chief-plan
You know what you want. The skill grills you briefly, writes goals and contracts, and breaks the work into tasks. When ready, run /chief-autopilot to execute.
Medium — need to clarify before planning
/chief-grill → /chief-plan
Your goal exists but has open design questions (architecture choices, trade-offs, unknowns). /chief-grill works through those questions with you — one at a time, with a background verifier checking your answers against the codebase. Feed the outcome into /chief-plan.
Large — requirement is fuzzy or vision-level
/shape-up → /chief-grill → /slim-down → /chief-plan
You have a problem or vision but haven't turned it into concrete requirements. /shape-up interviews you top-down (from problem to solution) to produce a scoped spec. Then /chief-grill stress-tests that spec. If the scope is still too big, /slim-down cuts it into a phase-sized piece.
By what you're trying to do
| You want to… | Use | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan a milestone step by step | /chief-plan | |
| Run a milestone hands-off | /chief-autopilot | |
| Run a full milestone across many batches, one report per task | /chief-loop | |
| Stress-test a design before building | /chief-grill or /grill-design | |
| Turn a vague idea into a spec | /shape-up | |
| Cut a goal down to a manageable phase | /slim-down | |
| Check a plan is safe to run unattended | /loop-readiness | |
| Actually run a plan's existing gates/tests before trusting them | /loop-preflight | |
| Permanently capture a decision as a rule | /chief-rule | |
| Bootstrap project context once | /chief-init | |
| Review a milestone after it ships | /chief-retro | |
| Make a quick commit | /dump-commit |
Choosing between /grill-design and /chief-grill
Both stress-test ideas. The difference is persistence and verification depth.
/grill-design | /chief-grill | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Session saved to file? | No — context only | Yes — .chief/_grill/opened/ | |
| Verifies answers against codebase? | No | Yes — spawns answer-verifier-agent per question | |
| Token cost | Normal | ~2× (two agents running) | |
| Best for | Quick design exploration | High-stakes decisions, sessions you might resume |
Use /grill-design for smaller ideas where you don't need audit trail or codebase verification. Use /chief-grill when the decision is consequential and you want each answer checked.
Choosing between /chief-plan and /chief-autopilot
/chief-plan | /chief-autopilot | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Review gates? | Yes — approve at each phase | No — runs to completion | |
| Requires existing goals/contracts? | No — creates them | Yes (or creates them and runs immediately) | |
| Best for | Complex projects, team work, unfamiliar domains | Prototyping, well-defined goals, solo work |
You can combine: plan carefully with /chief-plan, then execute with /chief-autopilot.
Choosing between /chief-autopilot and /chief-loop
/chief-loop builds directly on /chief-autopilot's auto mode — same no-stopping-for-ambiguity behavior, but it spans as many batches as it takes to finish the milestone (not just one), and writes a report per task instead of one per batch. Use /loop-readiness first if the milestone is large or touches anything you'd want a real-environment check on before letting it run unattended for that long — and if it finds pre-existing gates the milestone depends on, follow up with /loop-preflight to actually confirm those still pass before starting /chief-loop.
If you want the "stop and ask a human on ambiguity" behavior, use /chief-autopilot safe instead — /chief-loop has no safe-mode equivalent.
Related
- Skills reference — Full list of all skills with parameters
- How to stress-test a design