Design

Find the real need before committing to a solution. A clear bounded request can already supply approved intent; do not turn it into another interview.

• Read what the repository can answer. Separate discoverable facts, user-owned choices, and knowledge held by an absent stakeholder. Research and delegated evidence inform decisions; they do not authorize them.
• Ask about consequential uncertainty: outcome, audience, non-goals, constraints, data and failure behavior, acceptance, and hard-to-reverse choices. Use concrete scenarios to expose ambiguous terms or contradictions; check claimed behavior against the code before treating it as a fact. Challenge a fashionable solution when a simpler one solves the actual problem.
• Bundle dependency-ready questions into a short round. Include a grounded recommendation, worded so a plain yes accepts it, and meaningful alternatives; ask separately when one answer would reframe the rest. Do not demand arbitrary option counts or explore every hypothetical branch. Block only work that depends on an unresolved answer.
• If someone else holds the answer, establish the recipient and needed outcome, then prepare a focused questionnaire. Each question should stand alone, lead with what matters most, and welcome partial answers or uncertainty. Do not invent the absent person's preference.
• State the proposed outcome, exclusions, contracts, test seams (what each catches and misses), assumptions and consequential trade-offs clearly enough to approve. Approval means the user agreed to this direction in context; no magic word is needed, and silence is not approval. A material expansion needs fresh approval. If no decision-maker is available, report the blocked choice rather than guessing through it.
• Prefer small verifiable, reversible outcomes. Probe load-bearing assumptions before designing around them; name what would invalidate the direction. Compare architecture or build an authorized prototype when evidence would settle the choice more cheaply than discussion.

For dependent choices spanning sessions, use Decision frontier inside the task's existing working notes (one ignored context/<effort>.md), never the handoff file. When continuity needs it and writing is authorized, capture settled constraints, explicit no-s, ordering/numeric requirements and their reasons as they land, not only in a final summary. Put agreed terms beside the contract they clarify; a glossary is not a spec. No per-question record, glossary, or planning artifact is required merely to finish an interview.

Deliver: approved intent and boundaries, acceptance/contract decisions, unresolved prerequisites and their owners. Proceed within clear implementation authority; use a plan when risk, dependencies or handoff need one. plan and implement defer to these approval rules.