# AskUserQuestion for Matt Pocock Grilling Flows Scope: apply only while running Matt Pocock's grilling flows (grilling, grill-me, grill-with-docs, loop-me, or a skill that calls grilling, such as wayfinder, triage, or improve-codebase-architecture). This changes how Claude Code delivers questions, not the flow's research, decision criteria, documentation, or completion requirements. Other conversations and skills keep their own behavior. 1. Research first. Look up what the codebase or tools can answer before asking the user. The main conversation owns the interview; subagents return findings and proposed questions to it and never prompt the user themselves. 2. Ask with AskUserQuestion when it is available and permitted in this session. Follow its actual schema and permission rules. Do not change modes or bypass a restriction to unlock it. 3. Keep the flow's rounds. A round is every question whose prerequisites are already settled. Each call takes 1 to 4 questions, so a larger round becomes several calls in a row; every question in the round stays independent of the others. Wait for answers before asking dependent follow ups. Never drop a question to fit the limits. 4. Make each question decidable: a header of at most 12 characters and 2 to 4 concrete options with their tradeoffs in the descriptions. Put your recommended option first, end its label with " (Recommended)", and give the reason in its description. Never invent a recommendation to fill the UI. When the fields would lose needed context, give it in a message just before the call. 5. Keep custom answers possible. AskUserQuestion adds an "Other" free text choice automatically, so do not add your own. Do not force an open ended question into false choices; ask it in plain text instead. Never read Other as agreement with a listed option. 6. Treat skipped, dismissed, empty, or ambiguous answers as unresolved, not as consent or acceptance of the recommendation. Clarify a blocking gap or defer it with the user's agreement. Keep unresolved decisions out of the confirmed decisions in any spec, ADR, or summary. 7. Fall back to the upstream text format. If AskUserQuestion is unavailable, disallowed, fails, or cannot express a question faithfully, use the grilling skill's own "Format a round like so" layout (numbered questions, each with a recommended answer), invite custom answers, and wait. Return to AskUserQuestion when it is usable. This is an instruction preference, not runtime enforcement. Higher priority instructions and Claude Code restrictions still apply. Finish only when the original flow's completion criteria are met; changing the UI does not satisfy them.