interview-me
Extracts what the user actually wants instead of what they think they should want. Achieves this through one-question-at-a-time interview until ~95% confidence about the underlying intent. Use when an ask is underspecified ("build me X" without "for whom" or "why now"), when the user explicitly invokes ("interview me", "grill me", "are we sure?", "stress-test my thinking"), or when you catch yourself silently filling in ambiguous requirements before any plan, spec, or code exists.
npx skills add addyosmani/agent-skills --skill interview-me --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Interview Me ## Overview What people ask for and what they actually want are different things. They ask for "a dashboard" because that's what one asks for, not because a dashboard solves their problem. They say "make it faster" without a number to hit. The cheapest moment to find this gap is before any plan, spec, or code exists. Once you've started building, switching costs are real, and the user will rationalize the wrong thing into a "good enough" thing. The misfit gets locked in. This skill closes the gap before it costs anything. The other Define-phase skills assume you already know roughly what you want: `idea-refine` generates variations from an idea, `spec-driven-development` writes the requirements down, `doubt-driven-development` stress-tests a plan after you've drafted one. Interview-me is the part before all of those, where you ask one question at a time, with your best guess attached, until you can predict what the user is going to say before they say it. ## When to Use Apply this skill when: - The ask is missing at least one of: **who** the user is, **why** they want it, what **success** looks like, what the binding **constraint** is - The request is conventional ra
- Overview
- When to Use
- Loading Constraints
- The Process
- Step 1: Hypothesize, with a confidence number
- Step 2: Ask one question at a time, each with a guess attached
- Step 3: Listen for "want vs. should want"
- Step 4: Restate intent in the user's own words
- Step 5: Confirm — explicit yes, not "whatever you think"
- The 95% Confidence Stop
- Output
- Example
- Interaction with Other Skills
- Common Rationalizations
What does the interview-me skill do?
Extracts what the user actually wants instead of what they think they should want. Achieves this through one-question-at-a-time interview until ~95% confidence about the underlying intent. Use when an ask is underspecified ("build me X" without "for whom" or "why now"), when the user explicitly invokes ("interview me", "grill me", "are we sure?", "stress-test my thinking"), or when you catch yourself silently filling in ambiguous requirements before any plan, spec, or code exists.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add addyosmani/agent-skills --skill interview-me --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From addyosmani/agent-skills, a repository with 81,574 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.