# to-questionnaire

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

Kit: [engineering-kit](https://atlasscope.dev/kits/engineering-kit)

Written by Matt Pocock. Source: [mattpocock/skills](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills), copied at commit `4ae2317ddb22`. License: MIT. Copied unchanged.

## Install

```sh
npx skills add AtlasScope/agent-kit --skill to-questionnaire
```

Claude Code:

```sh
claude plugin marketplace add AtlasScope/agent-kit
claude plugin install engineering-kit@agent-kit
```

## 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 `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) 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>

Other files in the skill folder: LICENSE, agents. Browse them at https://github.com/AtlasScope/agent-kit/tree/main/kits/engineering-kit/plugins/engineering-kit/skills/to-questionnaire

## License

```text
MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
```

Source: https://atlasscope.dev/skills/to-questionnaire