interview-spec
Uses structured questioning to improve and complete technical specifications.
Install
mkdir -p .claude/skills/interview-spec && curl -L -o skill.zip "https://agentskills.codes/api/skills/download/2719" && unzip -o skill.zip -d .claude/skills/interview-spec && rm skill.zipInstalls to .claude/skills/interview-spec
Activation
This is the description your AI agent reads to decide when to run this skill — the better it matches your request, the more reliably it fires.
Deep-dive interview to flesh out a spec or design documentKey capabilities
- →Identify gaps and ambiguities in design documents
- →Ask targeted questions about technical implementation
- →Explore edge cases and failure modes
- →Synthesize answers into updated documentation
- →Challenge architectural assumptions
How it works
The skill analyzes the provided file to identify missing information or risks. It then conducts an interactive interview with the user to clarify requirements before rewriting the document with the gathered details.
Inputs & outputs
When to use interview-spec
- →Flesh out design documentation
- →Identify missing edge cases
- →Clarify API specifications
- →Refine project requirements
About this skill
You are conducting a thorough interview to help flesh out and complete a specification or design document.
Your Task
- Determine the document - Based on the conversation context, identify which spec or design document to interview about. Ask the user if unclear.
- Read the document - Load the identified file
- Analyze it deeply - identify gaps, ambiguities, unexplored edge cases, and areas needing clarification
- Interview the user by providing a question with some pre-determined options
- Write the completed spec back to the file when the interview is complete
Interview Guidelines
Question Quality
- Ask non-obvious, insightful questions - avoid surface-level queries
- Focus on: technical implementation details, architectural decisions, edge cases, error handling, UX implications, security considerations, performance tradeoffs, integration points, migration strategies, rollback plans
- Each question should reveal something that would otherwise be missed
- Challenge assumptions embedded in the document
- Explore second and third-order consequences of design decisions
- Use the Web Search and other tools where required to ground questions (e.g. package recommendations)
Question Strategy
- Start by identifying the 3-5 most critical unknowns or ambiguities
- Use the AskUserQuestion tool with well-crafted options that represent real tradeoffs
- When appropriate, offer multiple valid approaches with their pros/cons as options
- Don't ask about things that are already clearly specified
- Probe deeper when answers reveal new areas of uncertainty
Topics to Explore (as relevant)
- Technical: Data models, API contracts, state management, concurrency, caching, validation
- UX: Error states, loading states, empty states, edge cases, accessibility, mobile considerations
- Operations: Deployment, monitoring, alerting, debugging, logging, feature flags
- Security: Auth, authz, input validation, rate limiting, audit trails
- Scale: Performance bottlenecks, data growth, traffic spikes, graceful degradation
- Integration: Dependencies, backwards compatibility, versioning, migration path
- Failure modes: What happens when X fails? How do we recover? What's the blast radius?
Interview Flow
- Ask 2-4 questions at a time (use multiple questions in one when they're related)
- After each round, incorporate answers and identify follow-up questions
- Continue until all critical areas are addressed
- Signal when you believe the interview is complete, but offer to go deeper
Output
When the interview is complete:
- Synthesize all gathered information
- Rewrite/expand the original document with the new details
- Preserve the document's original structure where sensible, but reorganize if needed
- Add new sections for areas that weren't originally covered
- Write the completed spec back to the document
Begin by identifying the file from the conversation context, reading it, and identifying your first set of deep questions.
When not to use it
- →When the document is already fully specified
- →When the user requires immediate code generation without design review
Limitations
- →Requires a clear document to analyze
- →Relies on user availability for the interview process
How it compares
Instead of passively reviewing text, this skill actively probes for second-order consequences and technical tradeoffs to ensure the spec is reliable.
Compared to similar skills
interview-spec side by side with the closest alternatives in the catalog.
| Skill | Installs | Updated | Safety | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| interview-spec (this skill) | 5 | 6mo | No flags | Intermediate |
| project-planner | 32 | 9mo | Review | Intermediate |
| spec-kit-workflow | 11 | 8mo | No flags | Intermediate |
| specification-architect | 13 | 9mo | Review | Advanced |
Try saying
Example prompts that trigger this skill in your AI assistant.
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