Prompting tip: describe the problem, not your solution, for better agent grilling
mattpocockuk · x · 2026-11-10
Matt Pocock shares one tip for getting better "grilling" sessions from coding agents: explain the why, not the what.
If you lead with your proposed solution ("build an analytics panel with graphs and filters"), the agent assumes the important decisions are settled and only questions implementation. If you instead describe the underlying problem ("admins can't see an overview of key data"), you give the agent license to be creative, resulting in a much deeper and better conversation.
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