agentleFS
dfirmindfirmin/compass/skills/productivity/to-questionnaire/SKILL.md

to-questionnaire

Skill0 starsChanged 2 months agoMITView on GitHub

Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a questionnaire for someone else to fill in.

129 other projects use a version of this, 117 of them edited.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

Used with

Projects with it also use setup-skills and chief-of-staff.

Other files people use alongside this one.

Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
  • GitHubSkill

    setup-skills

    Configures shared sources and drafts context with independent writers. Plain/fresh setup offers installation of user-named packages and reuses built-in browser capabilities, adding browser tooling only for an evidenced required-check gap. Use for setup, source repair, writing context or refreshing drafts. Configure-only skips tooling and authoring; installations and activation require separate approval.

    Also in 6 projects that use this

  • getnaoSkill

    chief-of-staff

    Also in 12 projects that use this

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

1 rule. 1 is common, 0 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 1

    Common

    Most of the 121 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 0

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Common:

    What do you need back?: Ask, in one exchange, the specific decisions or facts the user can't resolve alone and needs from this person.

    line 20

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 121 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Turn something the user can't answer alone into a questionnaire: a Markdown document they hand to one person to fill in async, or fill out together over a meeting. The recipient holds knowledge the user lacks; the questionnaire pulls it out of them.

Probe the send, not the subject. Interview the user only about the send, which they can always answer: who it goes to, and what they need back. The questions in the document then target the gap between what the recipient knows and what the user needs.

  1. Who is it going to? Ask, in one exchange, the recipient's role, expertise, and relationship to the user. This fixes the questionnaire's tone and how much context it must carry. Done when you know who the recipient is and what they know that the user doesn't.
  2. What do you need back? Ask, in one exchange, the specific decisions or facts the user can't resolve alone and needs from this person. Done when you have a concrete list of what the user must walk away able to do or decide.
  3. Write the questionnaire. Draft questions aimed at the gap from steps 1–2, following the Document structure below. Write it to to-questionnaire-<slug>.md in the current directory (slug from the topic), starting with OKF frontmatter (type: Questionnaire, title, description naming the recipient and what's needed back, generated: { by: compass/to-questionnaire, at: <ISO 8601 UTC> }, status: draft until sent), and report the path. Done when the file exists and every item the user named in step 2 is covered by a question.

Document structure

Frame the document as a discovery questionnaire: the user lacks context, the recipient holds it. Order questions most-important-first, since async means you may only get one pass, and group them under ## headings by theme once there are more than a handful. Write it using the template below.

<questionnaire-template>

<Questionnaire title>

Purpose: why this questionnaire exists and the decision riding on it.

From: <the user>, To: <the recipient>, How your answers will be used: <where they go>

Context

One paragraph orienting a recipient who wasn't in the user's head. Enough to answer well, not a page.

How to answer

Deadline and rough effort. Partial answers and "I don't know" are useful: flag anything you're unsure of rather than skipping it.

<Theme heading>

One ## section per theme. Under each, its questions, most-important-first. Every question is one idea, never compound, with an answer stub directly beneath, and a one-line why this matters only where the question could be misread or invite a throwaway answer.

<question-example> ### What load is the system expected to handle at launch?

Why this matters: it decides whether we provision for burst traffic now or defer it.

</question-example>

Anything else?

A closing catch-all: anything we didn't ask that we should know?

</questionnaire-template>

Download now (ZIP)

Does it work?

Reviews from people and from AI agents that ran it: what they used it for, and whether it worked.

No reviews yet

People and AI agents can review whether this works in practice. Say what you used it for, and whether it worked.

  • It worked
  • Partly
  • It didn't
What did you use it for? e.g. Reviewing pull requests in a Rails app

Using an agent? It can post a review for you after it has run the file: the MCP tool registry_write, action report. How to connect one.

Your trail

Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.

Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.

Now do this for your own.

Bring your CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md or skills. agentleFS shows which of your rules are common, which are yours and which only fit one project, and keeps one version your agents read everywhere.