# Capture interview Read this at the start of every Jeff-run `capture`. It does not apply to Explore, Remember, or Record-pending. No schema or validator change. Capture still writes category, ACs, and non-goals. It locks only the confirmed now increment. Influence (ideas only, no vendored files): Matt Pocock's grilling design-tree and recommended-answer discipline, and his project glossary / ADR split. See `NOTICE`. Jeff keeps one question at a time and the host ask tool when it is available. It does not batch the frontier. ## Interview Keep an internal design tree of unsettled decisions. The frontier is every question whose prerequisites are already settled. Ask only the next frontier question. Dependent questions wait. One question at a time. Use the host ask tool when it is available: Cursor `AskQuestion`, Claude Code `AskUserQuestion`, Codex `request_user_input`, Grok Build `ask_user_question`, Oh My Pi `ask`. Short options, one recommended answer, grounder first. If that tool is not available this turn, ask the same shape in chat. Never a bundled questionnaire. Give a recommended answer unless two options are genuinely tied and nothing in the Chef's stated prefs, this repo, or the locked task so far breaks the tie. Try to always pick. When you skip a recommendation, say that it is a true tie. Keep the existing capture push-back: does this need to exist, is it speculative, does a bug hit users or risk a security or data-loss incident, and is the gap knowledge/instruction rather than a missing capability? Apply the fake-edge test. Stay on goals and outcomes unless you label a question increment-bounded. Destination answers are welcome and default; translate them onto increments. Two phases live inside this one capture stage. **Phase A** records destination decisions. Phase A does not lock a task. **Phase B** reads the live graph, files the destination onto existing or new nodes, and states now versus later in product language. File later work as pending siblings. Retarget existing nodes. Do not recreate or renumber the graph. Always stop for one confirm of that outcome split, not the topology. If now is the whole ask, the confirm is one line. Do not present a Chef-facing graph or DAG. After confirm, lock only the now slice. ## `task.md` Write the usual Goal, Category, Acceptance criteria, Non-goals, and Audit sections. Also write: - **Locked decisions:** settled design calls the lanes must not re-open. - **Rejected branches:** options considered and refused, with one line why. Those two sections are the durable design tree. Plan and later stages read them. They are not a glossary. ## Project glossary and ADRs `CONTEXT.md` at the repo root is a project glossary. Terms only. No implementation, no spec, no task ACs. It is not `.jeff/tasks//context.md` (that file stays the optional facts-only repo map that plan owns). `docs/adr/` holds architecture decision records. Write an ADR only when all three are true: 1. Hard to reverse: changing your mind later is costly. 2. Surprising later: a future reader will wonder why it is this way. 3. A real trade-off: genuine alternatives, picked for named reasons. Skip the ADR if any test fails. Glossary the term instead when it is only vocabulary. Create `CONTEXT.md` or `docs/adr/` only when the first term or ADR is actually owed. Do not scaffold empty files. **Who writes.** Only capture, and only before any `cook all` lane starts. Plan, implement, refactor, execute, review, verify, audit, refute, and council never edit `CONTEXT.md` or `docs/adr/`. A term discovered mid-drain is a note or follow-up, not a shared-file edit. ### Full mode When a term or ADR is owed, create or update the files. ### Lite mode Never introduce the convention silently. The first capture that would write a term or ADR asks once, via the host ask tool when it is available, whether to create `CONTEXT.md` / `docs/adr/`. After yes, maintain them under existing write-back consent. After no, do not create them later in this repo unless the Chef reverses that. Existing files are updates, not creates: still honor write-back consent. ## Glossary shape ```markdown # Domain ## Glossary ### Term One or two sentences. Ubiquitous language. No file paths, APIs, or tickets. ``` Challenge a Chef term that conflicts with the glossary. Sharpen overloaded words before they land in ACs. ## ADR shape ```markdown # - Status: accepted - Date: YYYY-MM-DD ## Context What forced the choice. ## Decision What we picked. ## Consequences What we accepted. ## Rejected What we did not pick, and why. ``` Filename: `docs/adr/NNNN-slug.md`, next integer in that directory.