Testing vs Design · both proven

grilling vs mcp-builder

Both skills were run through Claude twice: once on a fixed brief without the skill, once with it. The briefs differ because each is written for the job the skill claims to do, so compare each skill against its own baseline, then decide which difference matters for your work. They are in different categories, so this is a choice of job, not a head-to-head on the same job.

grilling

Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea. Use when the user wants to stress-test their thinking, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases.

Category: Testing
Source: mattpocock/skills
License: MIT
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Here is my plan. I want to launch a paid newsletter for independent game developers in six weeks. It will cost $8 a month, come out every Tuesday, and cover marketing tips, funding opportunities and interviews with developers who shipped on Steam. I have 1,200 followers on X and no email list yet. My goal is 500 paying subscribers in the first year. Grill me on this plan, and present the result as a single HTML page: every question you would ask me, in the order you would ask it, why each one matters, and what a weak answer would tell you.”
Skill commit: 5beb35b

Without the skillWith grilling

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Without, runWith grilling, run3 independent runs per side, none selected by hand.

Download the with-skill page

mcp-builder

Guide for creating high-quality MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that enable LLMs to interact with external services through well-designed tools. Use when building MCP servers to integrate external APIs or services, whether in Python (FastMCP) or Node/TypeScript (MCP SDK).

Category: Design
Source: anthropics/skills
License: Not stated
Proof model: claude-opus-5-5
Brief: “Build an MCP server in TypeScript that gives an agent read access to a team's Linear-style issue tracker through a REST API: tools to search issues, get one issue with comments, and list a project's open issues by priority. Present it as a single HTML page with the full source of each file, the tool schemas, how errors and pagination are handled, and how to run and connect it.”
Skill commit: dbd4588

Without the skillWith mcp-builder

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Without, runWith mcp-builder, run3 independent runs per side, none selected by hand.

Download the with-skill page

We don’t pick a winner for you: the pages are the evidence. Both proofs can be repeated with the brief, model and commit shown above. See alternatives to grilling or alternatives to mcp-builder.