Aligns on the scope of a request before any plan or implementation begins — the requirements-elicitation interview a senior engineer runs before touching code. Restates the request and diffs it against the user's words, researches the codebase so questions are specific, surfaces unknowns, non-goals, edge cases, and success criteria, then runs a batched clarifying-question interview only when research cannot resolve the ambiguity (adaptive — stays silent when the request is already crisp). Produces a confirmed brief.md artifact that downstream planning consumes, plus a readiness verdict (ready / ready-with-assumptions / blocked). Convergent and pre-plan: hands option-generation to /ideate, plan review to /critical, and scoring to /confidence. Use before autonomous work, before planning, or when a request feels underspecified. Triggers on "align on scope", "interview me", "clarify the request", "scope this", "scope alignment", "before we plan", "/interview".