hermes-skills/create-plan/references/structured-brief-10q.md

Structured 10-Question Brief Template

Reusable planning-interview pattern. Used by create-plan Phase 0 (the dispatcher) and any other agent that needs a frozen brief before delegating work. The curator / peer agent receives this brief as inline text and treats it as the starting point — does NOT re-ask these questions.

When to use

• You (or a dispatcher) are about to dispatch a peer agent for a non-trivial task (plan-build, deep research, design, multi-step implementation).
• The peer needs a complete, frozen starting point — not a back-and-forth.
• Operator is willing to spend ~3-5 minutes answering priority-ordered questions before dispatch.

The 10 questions (priority order)

#	Dimension	Question	Default if operator says "skip"
Q1	Scope	What are we building? What does "done" look like?	Curate from the dispatcher's initial message; if unclear, ask once before proceeding.
Q2	Constraints	Existing infrastructure? Must-use / must-avoid? Target environment?	None — proceed with sensible defaults; flag in the deliverable.
Q3	Success criteria	How will we know it works? Acceptance tests?	Define "done" as "all phases complete and reconciled."
Q4	Known unknowns	What are you uncertain about? Risks? Things that have bitten you before?	Disconfirmation clause in the research question (e.g., "verify no recent CVEs, no deprecation notices, no license changes").
Q5	Target users / audience	Who's using it? Skill level?	Operator is the default audience unless Q1 names otherwise.
Q6	Out of scope	Explicit non-goals? What are we NOT building?	Nothing — agent produces a comprehensive deliverable; operator trims after.
Q7	Performance / scale	Expected load, latency, throughput targets?	"No explicit targets" — agent picks reasonable defaults and notes the choice.
Q8	Security / compliance	Auth, data sensitivity, regulatory constraints?	Public / local-only by default; flag if scope implies otherwise.
Q9	Integration points	External systems, APIs, or services this must work with?	Agent identifies during research; operator corrects.
Q10	Timeline / cost ceiling	Time constraint? Budget ceiling? Priority vs. other work?	"No ceiling" — agent optimizes for correctness.

Operational rules

• Min as needed, max 10. Surface only the load-bearing dimensions for THIS topic. If Q1 already names the scope and there are no obvious constraints, ask just Q1 and proceed.
• Operator can stop at any Q with "skip," "you decide," or "ask all 10" or "ask just Q5 and Q7" — both honored.
• Hard cap at 10. Don't add Q11.
• Proceed as soon as Q1 (Scope) is answered if the operator signals urgency. The rest are optional.
• One at a time. Never batch the questions into a single "answer all of these" message.

Frozen-brief format (for the peer agent)

After collection, pass the brief to the peer in this exact format:

=== FROZEN BRIEF BEGIN ===
Topic: <topic from operator>
Target save dir: ~/workspace/plans/

Q1 (Scope):         <answer or "you decide">
Q2 (Constraints):   <answer or "you decide">
Q3 (Success):       <answer or "you decide">
Q4 (Unknowns):      <answer or "you decide">
Q5 (Users):         <answer or "you decide">
Q6 (Out-of-scope):  <answer or "you decide">
Q7 (Performance):   <answer or "you decide">
Q8 (Security):      <answer or "you decide">
Q9 (Integration):   <answer or "you decide">
Q10 (Timeline):     <answer or "you decide">

Mode flags:         <none, or e.g. --no-research>
=== FROZEN BRIEF END ===

The peer agent uses this brief as the starting point. It does NOT re-ask. It DOES surface in the deliverable header which Qs were "you decide" so the operator can override.

Why this template exists

• Prevents over-asking. 4 questions was too few (missed security/perf/integration). 10 is the upper bound that still respects operator time.
• Priority-ordered. The first 4 (Scope / Constraints / Success / Unknowns) are the load-bearing dimensions. The rest (Q5-Q10) are scoping details that can be skipped without losing the plan's load-bearing evidence.
• Operator-driven. The operator's "min as needed, max 10" preference is encoded: surface only what's load-bearing, never the full 10 unless asked.
• Reusable. The pattern is class-level — any non-trivial delegated work can benefit from this brief, not just plan-builds.

See Also

• create-plan skill — uses this as Phase 0
• subagent-driven-development skill — for the delegation pattern that consumes the brief
• ask-hermes skill — for the peer agent execution model