/sharpen

name: sharpen
description: "Aim a vague task at its real target without overspecifying: name the consumer, the observable change, the done-check, and the non-goals; at most one question when a real fork remains."
aliases: []
metadata:
  credits:
    task-aiming: pstack
    author: Lauren Tan
    url: "https://github.com/cursor/plugins/tree/main/pstack"
    port: pstack-claude
    port-author: Michael Denyer
    port-url: "https://github.com/michael-denyer/pstack-claude"

Sharpen

A vague brief fails quietly. Sharpening names what the work is for so the first attempt lands near the target — without pinning details the work itself should decide.

Workflow

1. **Name the consumer**: who feels the result (an end user, a teammate, a future reader), and what changes for them, observably. 2. **Run the expert lens** — the goal is a deeper task, not a bigger one. Before rewriting the brief, answer four questions and fold the answers in:

• what a top professional in this field would do here that the brief

does not ask for

• the rawest material they would start from, instead of what has

already been digested for the session

• the specific methods and tools they would use
• what, other than the session or the user, would show the result is

right — always keep one such outside check 3. **Name the done-check**: the cheapest observable that says the task is done — a command that passes, a page that renders, a question that answers. 4. **Name the non-goals**: what is explicitly out of scope this round. Non-goals are the cheapest scope protection there is. 5. **One question, if a real fork remains**: if two different tasks both satisfy the brief and the choice changes the work materially, ask — one question, with the options and what each would cost. Otherwise proceed and report the interpretation you took (`principles` skill, Never block on the human).

The deliverable is the rewritten brief, deeper not bigger, with choices that are the user's left open instead of decided.

Rules

• Sharpen the aim, not the solution: how to build it stays open unless the

user pinned it.

• Overspecifying is its own failure — a sharpened brief a stranger could

execute without chat context, in three sentences or fewer.

• If the brief cannot be sharpened (no consumer nameable, no done-check

findable), say so and route to `deep-interview`.