Coco Interview Skill

Conduct a structured pre-design interview to gather deep user intent, constraints, and context before generating a feature design. Produces a discovery brief that feeds directly into the design skill.

When to Use

• Pre-design discovery for Standard-tier features (before invoking the design skill)
• Deep-dive during any planning session (strategic, tactical, operational, triage)
• Natural language requests ("interview me about this feature", "let's discuss requirements")
• When /coco:phase or /coco:planning-session tactical routes to Standard tier

Do NOT use for:

• Trivial-tier features (use hotfix skill directly)
• Light-tier features (skip interview, use design in light mode)
• Features where the user has already provided exhaustive requirements

Setup

1. Read .coco/config.yaml for project.specs_dir (default: specs).
2. Determine the feature from conversation context:
   • If a feature name or description was provided, use it
   • If on a feature/* git branch, extract the feature name
   • If none of the above, ask the user what feature to discuss
3. Determine the feature directory: {specs_dir}/{feature-name}/
4. Load the discovery template from .coco/templates/discovery-template.md if it exists, otherwise use ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/templates/discovery-template.md.
5. Check if {specs_dir}/{feature-name}/discovery.md already exists:
   • If yes, enter refinement mode (see below)
   • If no, proceed with fresh interview

Execution

Category Progression

The interview covers these categories in order, adapting based on what the user has already provided:

1. Problem & Motivation -- What problem does this solve? Who feels the pain? Why now?
2. Users & Personas -- Who are the target users? What are their goals and skill levels?
3. Scope & Boundaries -- What's explicitly in scope? What's out of scope? MVP vs future?
4. Functional Requirements -- What are the core behaviors? What are the key user flows?
5. Technical Context -- What existing systems does this interact with? Any constraints?
6. UX & Interaction -- What does the user experience look like? Key screens/flows?
7. Non-Functional Requirements -- Performance, security, accessibility, scalability?

Question Strategy

Before asking any questions, analyze the user's initial feature description and any context from the current conversation. Determine which categories already have sufficient detail.

Rules:

• Use AskUserQuestion with recommended answers where possible (concrete options help users think faster)
• Skip categories where the initial description already provides sufficient detail
• Maximum 10 questions total across all categories
• Accept "done" or "skip" from the user to terminate early
• After each answer, reassess remaining coverage gaps
• Stop when all critical categories (Problem, Scope, Functional) are covered, even if other categories have gaps
• Prioritize questions by: scope-defining > ambiguity-resolving > nice-to-have
• Ask 1-3 questions at a time (not all 10 upfront)

Question format guidelines:

• Multiple-choice: Provide 2-4 concrete options with a recommended choice. Include descriptions explaining tradeoffs.
• Open-ended: Only when the space of answers is too broad for options. Keep the question specific and bounded.
• Never ask obvious questions -- demonstrate understanding of the domain by making informed assumptions and asking about the non-obvious aspects.

Output

After the interview completes (all critical categories covered, user says "done", or 10 questions reached):

1. Create the feature directory if it doesn't exist:

   mkdir -p {specs_dir}/{feature-name}

2. Fill the discovery template with structured findings from the interview.
3. Write to {specs_dir}/{feature-name}/discovery.md.
4. Report:
   • Discovery file path
   • Categories covered vs skipped
   • Key decisions captured
   • Open questions remaining (if any)
   • Suggested next step: tell the user to ask Claude to "design this feature" (this triggers the design skill automatically -- skills are NOT slash commands, so never suggest /coco:design)

Planning Session Context

When invoked during a planning session (strategic, operational, triage) rather than the standard pre-design flow:

• Output the discovery brief inline into session notes instead of (or in addition to) writing discovery.md
• Adapt category progression to the session context:
  • Strategic: Focus on Problem & Motivation, Scope & Boundaries, Technical Context
  • Operational: Focus on the specific blocker -- narrow to relevant categories only
  • Triage: Focus on Problem & Motivation, Scope & Boundaries (enough to score)

Refinement Mode

When discovery.md already exists:

1. Load and display a summary of the existing discovery brief
2. Ask the user what has changed or what gaps they want to address
3. Focus questions on:
   • Categories marked with open questions in the existing brief
   • New information or changed requirements
   • Areas the user specifically wants to revisit
4. Update discovery.md in place (preserve existing content, add/modify sections)
5. Append to the Change Log at the bottom: {date} | Refinement | {summary of changes}

Guidelines

• Keep the interview conversational but structured -- don't make it feel like a form
• Make informed assumptions based on context and industry standards; verify only non-obvious choices
• Every answer should move the understanding forward -- don't ask for information you can infer
• The discovery brief is a living document -- it can be refined as understanding deepens
• Do NOT generate design.md -- that is the design skill
• Do NOT generate tasks.md -- that is the tasks skill
• Never modify files outside the feature's spec directory