Interview me

Let AI ask you the questions. Instead of writing the draft yourself, you answer a short interview and AI assembles the first draft from your answers. Good for a blank page.

Claude interviews you, one question at a time. The questions raise things you would not have thought to pin down, so the recipe card it fills is the right size, the right time, and uses what you actually have.

You are helping me get clear on [the thing I am defining: for example the user, the problem, or the promise].

Interview me. Ask one question at a time, the questions a sharp definition would need answered. Start broad, then get specific. After about five questions, write a first draft from my answers in three short lines.

Do not write the draft until you have asked the questions.

Copy this into your AI chat.

Replace the bracketed part with what you are defining, then answer its questions one at a time. It writes the first draft from your answers, and you run that through Sharpen.

Doing this with Claude Code: Interview me

The interview works in a few ways: one question at a time, broad then specific and the questions you would not have asked.

One question at a time. It asks, you answer, then the next. A barrage at once and you cannot think, one at a time and each answer shapes the question that follows.

Broad first, then specific. Start wide, who is this dish for, then narrow, any allergies, how much time have you got.

The questions you would not have asked. The real payoff is the things it raises that you did not know to think about, so your own thinking comes out more complete.

No drafting until it has asked. Tell it not to write the card until the questions are done, or it charges ahead on its own guesses.

Common questions

What happens if I skip the interview and just describe what I want?
Claude charges ahead on its own guesses and wastes time building the wrong thing. Tell it not to write the draft until the questions are done, or it will start drafting before it knows enough.
Is the interview only so the AI can fill in the gaps it needs?
The payoff is bigger than Claude filling in what it needs. The questions bring up things you had not thought of yourself, so your own thinking comes out more complete than it went in.
When does an interview help most?
When the area is new to you, where you do not know what you do not know. The questions raise the things you could never have asked: the ways it can fail, the edge cases, the thing that breaks under load.
Why one question at a time rather than all of them?
A barrage at once and you cannot think. Asked one at a time, each answer shapes the question that follows, which is what lets the interview go somewhere you did not plan.

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