Habit, a trial · installs only where you enable it

to-questionnaire

about 1,000 tokens

to-questionnaire as it installs, each line coloured by where its words came from.

  • 2 files
  • 3 edits
  • 0 sentences left out
  • 1 source
  • last changed 2026-10-19
  • trial

The text

SKILL.md

about 900 tokens
  • Matt Pocock's skills
  • greenline

---

name: "to-questionnaire"

description: "Turn a decision the owner can't fully answer into a questionnaire for the person who can, to fill in async or together over a meeting: ask the owner only who it goes to and what they need back, then write the questions most-important-first, one idea each, with \"I don't know\" welcome. Use when a decision the work needs can be answered only by someone other than the owner."

---

greenlineThe title is to-questionnaire, a heading upstream's body lacked

# To questionnaire

greenlineOpens the trial habit: for decisions only someone else can answer

to-questionnaire is a trial habit, installed only where the workspace's `trials` names it, for the moment a decision the work needs can be answered only by someone other than the owner, at whatever step the work is in, most often frame. It writes no record of its own: the questionnaire is a working file, never committed, that the owner hands on, and the answers that come back settle the decision in the section of the step that asked. The file lives in the open change's working files; with no change open, give the questionnaire in the reply instead of a file. A question the owner can answer is frame's to ask; this habit asks the owner only about the send.

greenlinePoints at the skill's references page for paths and commands

Greenline's paths and commands for this skill stand on its references page, [references/greenline.md](references/greenline.md): read it when the work lands in the workspace.

Matt Pocock's skillsto-questionnaire/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.

**Grill 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 the working files as `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` (slug from the topic) and report the path. Done when the file or the reply holds it 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>

SKILL.md as installed, byte for byte SHA-256 c9f97b2828faf295bf8734837beed90a98b2de17116b337a5731a65546209949

references/greenline.md

about 90 tokens
  • greenline
greenlineOpens the skill's mechanics page, read with SKILL.md

# To questionnaire: the practice's mechanics

This page holds where to-questionnaire's work lands in the workspace and the commands it runs, which `SKILL.md` names by their nouns. Read it with `SKILL.md` when the work lands in the workspace.

greenlineThe questionnaire's working file

## Where its work lands

The questionnaire is `.greenline/tmp/<id>/to-questionnaire-<slug>.md`, in the open change's working files.

The edits

Red is upstream's text; green is what greenline shipped in its place.

What the edit kinds mean
method
changes what the method does, under a recorded ruling
correction
fixes an error
scope
fits the text to this skill
pointer
re-points a reference
smaller edits
rename, relocate or adjust tool details
3 smaller edits

Renames, locations and tool details, each with its reason.

  1. Edit 1 relocate SKILL.md:21

    Upstream: Write it to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) and report the path.

    Shipped: Write it to the working files as `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) and report the path.

    The questionnaire is a working file, not the current folder

    Full reason

    The questionnaire is a working file of the open change rather than a file in the current directory. Since J-93 S2 the front names greenline's homes and commands by their nouns, their paths and commands on the skill's references page.

  2. Edit 2 relocate SKILL.md:21

    Upstream: Write it to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) and report the path.

    Shipped: Write it to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` (slug from the topic) and report the path.

    The questionnaire is a working file, not the current folder

    Full reason

    The questionnaire is a working file of the open change rather than a file in the current directory. Since J-93 S2 the front names greenline's homes and commands by their nouns, their paths and commands on the skill's references page.

  3. Edit 3 relocate SKILL.md:21

    Upstream: Done when the file exists and every item the user named in step 2 is covered by a question.

    Shipped: Done when the file or the reply holds it and every item the user named in step 2 is covered by a question.

    With no change open, the questionnaire in the reply completes the step

    Full reason

    With no change open the questionnaire is given in the reply, so the step is done when the reply carries it.

What greenline wrote

The full reason for every passage greenline wrote, in the order of the text.

  1. SKILL.md:6 rename

    The habit's title is its roster name, which upstream's body, opening without a heading, does not give.

  2. SKILL.md:8 scope

    One opening paragraph in the habit's own voice: the situation its block row keys it by, that it is a trial installed only where trials names it, that it writes no record and where its file and its answers go, and the step beside it that questions the owner. Since J-93 S2 the front names greenline's homes and commands by their nouns, their paths and commands on the skill's references page.

  3. SKILL.md:10 pointer

    The front points at the skill's references page, where greenline's paths and commands for it stand since J-93 S2, so the front holds the method alone.

  4. references/greenline.md:1 scope

    The skill's references page opens: greenline's mechanics for the skill, the paths and commands its front names by their nouns, held apart from the upstream prose since J-93 S2.

  5. references/greenline.md:5 relocate

    to-questionnaire's mechanics: the working file the questionnaire is written to, held apart since J-93 S2.

What it left out

Matt Pocock's skills

Matt Pocock's skills, to-questionnaire/SKILL.md: all 41 sentences taken

The ledger entry

greenline's ledger logs how each skill was made and changed, with a reason for each entry.

2026-10-19 2026-10-19-to-questionnaire-front-and-references

to-questionnaire's paths and commands move to a references page

The front names greenline's homes and commands by their nouns and points at a references page, which holds their paths and commands (J-93 S2).

Authorised by
2026-10-18 The operator's words of 2026-10-18 on the redesign (N-56, items 2 and 7), "we need the upstream prose upfront and references hold how to work meaning the artefacts etc" and, on the ingest procedures, "we wanna have there prose .. what we don't wanna have is there artefact system and fit them to use ours"; and J-93 S2's finalise words of 2026-10-19, "Fast route, merged slices, parallel jobs (Recommended)": a skill's front is the upstream prose its recipe cuts, and its mechanics, where its work lands, its section's form, its depths at each mode and its commands, stand on its references page
Pages it touched
SKILL.md, references/greenline.md
Rulings, R1 to R4
  1. the operator's rulings of 2026-10-08 on the intake R3 ("everything is good", and "yes go ahead" on the portable forms of R21), the verdicts standing and every contradiction ruled as recommended; to-questionnaire a copy, a new trial habit for a decision only someone other than the owner can answer
  2. under R22 of 2026-10-08, the re-cut brief accepted as recommended ("yes amend, with one change"): the names of the roster table and the trial names stand, and show-me stays implicit
  3. J-59, on the operator's words of 2026-10-09 ('okay then implement all of this'): a gist of at most twelve words on every account whose reason is stated; no text, measure or method changes
  4. The operator's words of 2026-10-18 on the redesign (N-56, items 2 and 7), "we need the upstream prose upfront and references hold how to work meaning the artefacts etc" and, on the ingest procedures, "we wanna have there prose .. what we don't wanna have is there artefact system and fit them to use ours"; and J-93 S2's finalise words of 2026-10-19, "Fast route, merged slices, parallel jobs (Recommended)": a skill's front is the upstream prose its recipe cuts, and its mechanics, where its work lands, its section's form, its depths at each mode and its commands, stand on its references page
2 earlier entries

  1. 2026-10-09 2026-10-09-to-questionnaire-gists

    Every account gets a short gist for the website

  2. 2026-10-08 2026-10-08-to-questionnaire-recipe

    Enters as a trial habit copied from mattpocock

    Pages it touched: SKILL.md