Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until reaching shared understanding, resolving each branch of the decision tree. Use when user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".
Install with the open skills CLI (global, non-interactive — available in every Claude Code session):
npx skills add zebbern/claude-code-guide --skill "cross-examine" -g -a claude-code -yOr manually — clone and copy the skill directory (SKILL.md + companion files):
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zebbern/claude-code-guide /tmp/claude-code-guide && cp -r /tmp/claude-code-guide/skills/cross-examine ~/.claude/skills/cross-examineThis skill is a directory: SKILL.md is the entry point; the files below ship with it.
---
name: cross-examine
description: Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until reaching shared understanding, resolving each branch of the decision tree. Use when user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".
---
Interview me relentlessly about every aspect of this plan until we reach a shared understanding. Walk down each branch of the design tree, resolving dependencies between decisions one-by-one. For each question, provide your recommended answer.
Ask the questions one at a time.
If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead.
You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation.
Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
Use when you have a written implementation plan to execute in a separate session with review checkpoints