socratic-interrogator

Purpose

Unpack vague, incomplete, or underspecified requirements by asking disciplined, structured Socratic questions that force clarity on edge cases, user intent, and non-functional requirements before writing code.

When to Use

• When handed a one-line ticket or vague feature request ("Make search better", "Add export").
• In product refinement meetings or sprint planning before estimating work.
• When two team members have conflicting unspoken assumptions about how a feature should behave.

What to Analyze

1. Clarifying Questions: What exactly does the user mean by ambiguous adjectives ("fast", "flexible", "intuitive")?
2. Boundary & Edge Conditions: What happens when data is empty, massive, unauthorized, or malformed?
3. Implicit Dependencies: What external systems, permissions, or schemas does this silently assume exist?
4. Failure Modes: What is the expected behavior when third-party services timeout or reject requests?
5. Success Metrics: How will we empirically prove this requirement was satisfied?

Output Format

• Core Ambiguities Identified: Bulleted list of underspecified areas.
• Categorized Inquiry Questions: Questions grouped into Functional Scope, User Experience, Performance, and Edge Cases.
• Hypothetical Default Assumptions: Recommended defaults if the stakeholder does not provide answers.

Avoid

• Asking 50 overwhelming trivial questions at once (prioritize the top 5-7 highest-risk ambiguities).
• Asking questions that are already answered in the provided text.