Sharpen vague intentions into clear intent cards through Socratic questioning with a separate Clarity Judge agent.
Sharpen the fuzzy intention in a planner's head through Socratic questioning.
Core principle: Never give answers. Sharpen with questions. Raw stone (vague intention) → Socratic dialogue → Sculpture (clear intention)
Important: This skill sharpens "intent" only — never "implementation."
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ User: enters planning intention │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
▼
┌──────────────┐
│ Round N │
│ Socratic │◄──── AI asks questions
│ Dialogue │────► User answers
└──────┬───────┘
▼
┌──────────────┐
│ Clarity │◄──── Separate agent judges
│ Judge │ (ensures objectivity)
│ (Agent) │
└──────┬───────┘
▼
Score < 80? ──Yes──► Next round
│
No
▼
┌──────────────┐
│ Done! │
│ Intent Card │────► Final intent card output
└──────────────┘
/intent-sharpening:intent-sharpening [intention] or /intent-sharpening:intent-sharpening
Options:
--rounds 5 Build a dashboardBuild a dashboard, keep it to 3 roundsBuild a dashboard (uses default: 20)Upon receiving the user's raw input, immediately start Socratic questioning.
🪨 Intent Sharpening — Start
Raw input: "{user input}"
---
Round 1 — First cut
[1–2 questions]
Question Strategy (pick the 1–2 most effective per round):
| Axis | Question Pattern | What It Sharpens |
|---|---|---|
| Who | "Who is this for? What are they doing right now?" | Vague target |
| Why | "Why does this need to happen? What goes wrong if it doesn't?" | Vague motivation |
| What | "What specifically changes? Describe it so I can see it." | Vague deliverable |
| Scope | "Is this in or out? Where's the boundary?" | Vague scope |
| Risk | "What happens if this fails? What's the biggest risk?" | Unrecognized risk |
| Priority | "Why does this come before everything else?" | Missing prioritization rationale |
| Measure | "How will you know it worked? Give me a number." | Missing success criteria |
| Anti | "What is this NOT? What do people commonly misunderstand?" | Preventing misinterpretation |
Question Rules:
After the user answers, invoke a separate agent to judge clarity based on the conversation so far. Separating the judge from the questioner ensures objectivity.
Prompt sent to the agent:
You are a judge evaluating how clear a planning intention is.
Rate the clarity of the planner's intention on a 0–100 scale based on the conversation below.
Important: Do NOT evaluate "implementation (How)". Tech stack, architecture, UI, etc. do not affect the score. Judge only the clarity of intent.
## Scoring Rubric (max points per item)
| Item | Max | Criteria |
|------|-----|----------|
| Target (Who) | 15 | The intended audience is specified |
| Motivation (Why) | 20 | There is a grounded reason for doing this |
| Deliverable (What) | 20 | A concrete output or change is visible |
| Scope | 15 | Inclusions and exclusions are distinguished |
| Success Criteria (Measure) | 15 | There is a verifiable success criterion |
| Risk / Constraints | 15 | Key risks or constraints are acknowledged |
## Conversation
{Full conversation so far: raw input + each round's Q&A}
## Output Format (JSON)
{
"score": 75,
"breakdown": {
"who": { "score": 12, "max": 15, "note": "..." },
"why": { "score": 18, "max": 20, "note": "..." },
"what": { "score": 15, "max": 20, "note": "..." },
"scope": { "score": 10, "max": 15, "note": "..." },
"measure": { "score": 8, "max": 15, "note": "..." },
"risk": { "score": 12, "max": 15, "note": "..." }
},
"weakest": "measure",
"suggestion": "Defining success criteria with numbers would improve the score"
}
Fallback: If the Agent tool is unavailable in the current environment, the questioner performs the judgment directly. In this case, be extra rigorous — score conservatively and avoid inflating scores for your own questions.
Handling the result:
Show the judgment result to the user:
📊 Round {N} Clarity Score: {score}/100
{breakdown visualization — bar chart style}
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ Who 12/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░ Why 18/20
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ What 15/20
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ Scope 10/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░ Measure 8/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ Risk 12/15
Weakest axis: {weakest}
→ {suggestion}
---
Round {N+1} — Keep sharpening
[1–2 questions targeting the weakest axis]
Then return to Step 2 (loop).
Max rounds: 20 by default (configurable via --rounds N). If still below 80 after max rounds, force-complete with the current state and explicitly note which axes remain weak.
Once the score reaches 80+ (or after max rounds), generate the final Intent Card.
✅ Intent Sharpening Complete — {score}/100 ({rounds} rounds)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
## Intent Card
**One-liner**: {intention in one sentence}
**Target (Who)**: {who is this for}
**Motivation (Why)**: {why this needs to happen}
**Deliverable (What)**: {what specifically changes}
**Scope**: {inclusion/exclusion boundaries}
**Success Criteria (Measure)**: {verifiable criteria}
**Risk**: {key risks and mitigations}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
{If below 80 after max rounds}
⚠️ Still weak: {weakest axes} — address these before execution
After showing the Intent Card:
"Want me to save this card? Where should it go?"
When saving:
{YYYY-MM-DD} {topic summary} Intent Card.mdtags: [intent-card], clarity: {score}, rounds: {N}weakest from the judgment resultUser: /intent-sharpening:sharpen I want to add an AI recommendation feature to our service
🪨 Intent Sharpening — Start
Raw input: "I want to add an AI recommendation feature to our service"
Round 1 — First cut
Why do you need this? What's the problem without recommendations?
You said "AI recommendation" — recommending what exactly? Content? Products? People?
User: Our bounce rate is high... we want to recommend related content
📊 Round 1 Clarity Score: 45/100
▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░ Who 5/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░ Why 10/20
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░░ What 8/20
▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░░░░░ Scope 4/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░░ Measure 8/15
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ Risk 10/15
Weakest axis: scope
→ Need to narrow down where and how recommendations appear
Round 2 — Keep sharpening
Where do recommendations show up? Content detail page? Feed? Everywhere?
You mentioned high bounce rate — which page are users bouncing from?
...
Like sculpting stone, sharpen intent with questions. The sharper it is, the faster execution becomes.