A technique for developing a design concept with an agent: the agent interviews the user Socratically, one decision at a time, proposing a recommended answer for each. Slows the rush to a finished plan — no handoff artifact is written until the concept stabilises.
The technique exists because agents fill gaps silently. Asked to write a spec from a two-line prompt, the agent doesn't stop at the decisions you haven't made — it picks defaults and writes them in. The result looks complete, and the guesses are indistinguishable from the choices, so you discover them late: at review, or when the built feature handles an edge case in a way you never chose. Grilling inverts this — instead of guessing, the agent has to ask.
It's a human-in-the-loop technique: your answers are the input. When a question can't be answered in conversation — you'd have to see the thing — switch to prototyping.
Usage:
"It went straight to writing the spec and got the cancellation logic wrong."
"Grill it first — make it ask you about partial cancels, refunds, and timing before it commits anything to the doc. Cheaper to resolve in conversation than in code."