Proven skills / Compare

Two testing skills · both proven

grilling vs tdd

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.

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

Download the with-skill page

tdd

Test-driven development. Use when the user wants to build features or fix bugs test-first, mentions "red-green-refactor", or wants integration tests.

Category
Testing
Source
mattpocock/skills
License
MIT
Proof model
claude-opus-5-5
Brief
“Implement a function that parses a cron expression (the standard five fields) and returns the next run time after a given date, in TypeScript. Present the work as a single HTML page with two columns: the test file on the left and the implementation on the right, each in a code block, with a short note at the top on the order you did things in and anything you decided not to support.”
Skill commit
5beb35b
Without the skillWith tdd
⇆
Without, runWith tdd, 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 tdd.