clarifying-question-discipline

Clarifying Question Discipline

Internal shared skill. Referencing workflows declare it in frontmatter dependencies and abort at startup if it is missing — no silent fallback.

The hard discipline: one question per round, multiple rounds until clear

When information is insufficient to guarantee output quality, ask the user exactly ONE most critical question per round, then wait for the answer before continuing (or asking the next one).

• Priority order for picking the question: purpose → constraints → success criteria.
• Multi-round by design: when several unknowns exist (purpose, constraints, success criteria all missing), resolve them across multiple rounds — each round's question is refined by the previous answer. This discipline does NOT mean "only one question for the whole session"; it means one question per message, iterating until the information is sufficient.
• Unconditional: this discipline does NOT depend on whether any enhancement skill (e.g. brainstorming) is detected. It applies in every environment.

Forbidden: asking multiple questions in one message, or listing several open points for the user to answer one by one.

Why: multi-question dumps increase user cognitive load, cause missed answers, and diffuse the AI's focus. One-at-a-time converges progressively — each question is refined by the previous answer.

Question format

Describe intent; the agent picks its own native capability (platform-agnostic, per repo rules):

• Prefer the agent's native structured-question capability (single question + multiple options); fall back to plain prose when unavailable.
• Do NOT hardcode a platform-specific tool, and do NOT enumerate "platform X uses tool A, platform Y uses tool B".

[One sentence stating the question clearly]
- A option one
- B option two

Short-answer convention: the user may reply with just an option letter ("A", "B"); parse it and continue.

Investigation-first principle

1. Investigate before speaking — for uncertain questions, investigate first, then advise. No investigation, no say.
2. Evidence over assumptions — speak with data, facts, and evidence; avoid void hypotheses.

Integration guide (for referencing workflows)

A referencing workflow keeps exactly three touchpoints in its own body (per spec clarifying-question-discipline); the full discipline text lives only here:

1. Prominent pointer — a bold/tagged one-line declaration (e.g. "⚠️ Ask one question at a time — see clarifying-question-discipline"), not buried in a plain paragraph.
2. Entry-point quantity constraint — at each user-questioning step (e.g. "list open questions"), explicitly state "if asking the user, ask only ONE most critical question; ask the next only after the answer".
3. Red Flags entry — "dumping multiple questions/open points on the user at once" listed as forbidden, with the one-at-a-time fix.

Skills that do NOT declare the dependency (e.g. standalone English skills) instead inline the full form themselves (prominent declaration + entry constraint + Red Flags + platform-agnostic phrasing).