feat(auto-dev): needs-info questions are decisions, not essays

[allenhutchison]

What changed

The needs-info question comment auto-dev posts now has a fixed shape, and a word cap.

references/comment-formats.md — the Question comment template is rebuilt around five parts, each question under 300 words:

• Area — file / command / subsystem the problem appears in
• Impact — what a user sees or loses (skip only if genuinely user-invisible, and say so)
• Problem — the ambiguity, 1–2 sentences
• Options — two or three real choices, one line each with its tradeoff
• Recommendation — which one and why, one sentence

Plus the trimming rules that make the cap reachable: no restating the issue back to the maintainer, no background they already have, no code excerpts, three questions per comment max. A pure missing-fact ask ("which account does this run as?") keeps Area / Impact / Problem and replaces Options / Recommendation with the specific fact needed — rather than inventing a fork to fill the slot.

references/triage.md — both branches that emit these comments point at the shape: no-label → Needs-info, and the Needs-info follow-up ask (so a revised question stays as tight as the first).

SKILL.md — one note in the Comment formats section, so the constraint is visible without opening the reference.

Why

A maintainer should be able to answer a needs-info comment from one read. The old guidance asked only for "specific, numbered" questions, which drifts toward long context-dumps that restate the issue back to the person who filed it. An ask that takes ten minutes to parse is an ask that sits unanswered — and the issue behind it stalls at Needs-info until it does.

Reviewer notes

• The park-proposal template is deliberately unchanged. It covers the "this is your call, not missing facts" case and is already 1–3 sentences; imposing the five-part structure would make it longer, not shorter. If decision forks should instead route through the new question format, that's a triage-branch change and a separate PR.
• Prose-only change to one plugin's skill and references — no code, no config schema, no label semantics touched. Version bump lands on merge via version-bump.yml.

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

The PR standardizes Needs-info questions so maintainers can answer them quickly while preserving the separate park-proposal path for design and judgment calls.

• Adds a five-part, under-300-word question format with a missing-fact exception.
• Applies the format to initial and follow-up Needs-info questions.
• Surfaces the constraint in the main auto-dev skill documentation.

Confidence Score: 5/5

The PR appears safe to merge.

No blocking failure remains.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
plugins/auto-dev/skills/auto-dev/SKILL.md	Adds concise top-level guidance for the new Needs-info question structure and word limit.
plugins/auto-dev/skills/auto-dev/references/comment-formats.md	Defines the five-part question template, trimming rules, question limit, and pure missing-fact exception while leaving park proposals distinct.
plugins/auto-dev/skills/auto-dev/references/triage.md	Applies the new format to initial and follow-up questions while preserving the separate park-proposal branch for maintainer-owned decisions.

_{Reviews (2): Last reviewed commit: "fix(auto-dev): keep design forks on the ..." | Re-trigger Greptile}