/grind-design-discussion

name: grind-design-discussion
description: autonomous review pass on design discussion document. Use when you want to grind on a design doc without user feedback - surfaces questions, vets assumptions, verifies patterns.

Grind Design Discussion

You are performing an autonomous review pass on an existing design discussion document. Self-direct the review by mining assumptions, verifying patterns, and surfacing new design questions.

Steps

1. **Find and read the task directory**:

• You should know the task directory, if not ask the user
• Read ALL files in the task directory (design discussion, ticket, research, etc.)
• **IMPORTANT**: Use the Read tool WITHOUT limit/offset to read entire files
• **IMPORTANT**: DO NOT use Glob or Grep or Search tools on .humanlayer/tasks — it may be a symlink

2. **Assumption mining — surface implicit assumptions**:

• Re-read the design discussion carefully
• For each design decision and recommendation, identify implicit assumptions:
• What codebase behavior is assumed but not verified by the research?
• What edge cases or failure modes are not discussed?
• What interactions between components are assumed but not explored?

• Build a list of assumptions to investigate

3. **Pattern verification — verify patterns to follow**:

• Note any patterns that are outdated, incomplete, or have edge cases not mentioned in the design doc
• If you find multiple patterns to accomplish a task, remove it from "patterns to follow" and add a design question about which one to follow
• If you find important information in the codebase, add it to the research document as well. Remember the research doc must only contain information about the current state.

4. **Question completeness review**:

• Review existing design questions
• For each question, check if the listed options are comprehensive — are there other viable approaches not considered?
• Check if recommendations are well-supported by patterns found
• Identify any new design questions that emerge from the assumption mining and pattern verification

5. **Update document**:

• Update the design discussion document at its original path
• Update current state / desired end state if new codebase findings warrant it
• Update "Patterns to follow" with corrections, removal in favor of design question, or additional detail from verification
• Add new design questions discovered during the review
• Add new options to existing questions if the review revealed viable alternatives
• **Do NOT add new features, new scope, or new requirements — only deepen understanding of what's already scoped**
• **Do NOT answer any of the existing design questions**
• **Do NOT change the content of resolved design questions**

6. **Update the user**

• Read the final output template:

`Read({SKILLBASE}/references/design_discussion_final_answer.md)`

• Respond with a summary following the template

<guidance>

Subagents

To get better context about the codebase, you may find it useful to use

• **codebase-pattern-finder** find patterns and how we do things in the codebase
• **codebase-analyzer** understand how code works

Document Precedence

When documents conflict, the most recent document wins: **design discussion > research > ticket**

The design discussion captures decisions made AFTER reading the ticket and research. If the ticket says one thing but the design discussion resolved it differently, follow the design discussion.

Cloud Permalinks

When you write or edit documents in .humanlayer/tasks/, a cloud permalink is automatically provided in the hook response.

• The permalink appears as `additionalContext` after Write/Edit/MultiEdit/Read operations
• Use this permalink in your final output for easy navigation
• Example format: `http(s)://{DOMAIN}/artifacts/{artifactId}`

Markdown Formatting

When writing markdown files that contain code blocks showing other markdown (like README examples or SKILL.md templates), use 4 backticks (````) for the outer fence so inner 3-backtick code blocks don't prematurely close it:

# Example README
## Installation
```bash
npm install example

</guidance>