Clarification Through Iterative Discovery

Narrows vague user requests into well-defined work scopes. Explores the codebase first, then asks questions grounded in what exploration found, iterating until ambiguity is gone.

Core Principle

Ambiguity does not resolve in one pass. Multiple rounds of exploration and questions intersect, gradually sharpening the picture. Exploration comes first: an agent that has seen the codebase asks confident, specific questions; an agent that hasn't asks generic ones and wastes the user's answers. The purpose of this skill is not "writing code" — it is making "what the user wants" and "what state the codebase is in" vivid and clear.

Hard Gates

1. Explore before you ask. Dispatch recon subagents BEFORE the first question. Every question must be grounded in exploration findings — never ask the user something the codebase can answer.
2. Always use subagents. Dispatch subagents before the first question, and again in response to the user's answers.
3. Do not start implementation until you can say "this is clear enough." Understanding must be complete at the codebase level.
4. Every question must narrow scope. Do not repeat questions at the same level of ambiguity. Independent questions may be bundled into one round (up to 4, e.g., via AskUserQuestion); dependent questions are asked iteratively. The loop ends when ambiguity is gone — not after a fixed number of rounds.
5. Never dump raw code exploration results on the user. Summarize findings in the context of the user's question.

When To Use