| name | request-supervisor |
| description | Decision protocol for when to act autonomously vs escalate to supervisor. Use before any communication with the user or parent-agent, or whenever uncertain whether to act autonomously or escalate. |
| license | MIT |
Request Supervisor
Protocol for deciding whether to request help from supervisor (user or parent-agent).
When to Use
This is the escalation gate, and over-using it defeats the autonomy it guards.
Do not invoke for decisions you can resolve yourself from the code, project
conventions, or a sensible default — act, and note the choice. Reserve it for
genuine forks: missing credentials/auth, approval for a destructive or
irreversible action, or intent that stays ambiguous after you've exhausted the
cheap ways to disambiguate.
Before Making Any Request — Checklist
- Do I have a tool that can do this? (bash, curl, file read/write, etc.)
→ YES: Do it yourself. Do not request.
- Does this require credentials or auth I don't have?
→ YES: Request, specifying exactly what you need.
- Does this require approval for a destructive or irreversible action?
→ YES: Request approval, explain what and why.
- Does this require information only the supervisor has? (business context, priorities, preferences)
→ YES: Request with specific questions.
Pre-Flight Check — Before Suggesting Commands to User
Verify CLI commands before suggesting them. Skip verification only for well-established standard tools (ls, cat, grep, git, etc.) — for any project-specific or less common tool, check first.
- Command exists? Run
<tool> --help or which <tool> before recommending.
- Subcommand exists? Run
<tool> <subcommand> --help to confirm.
- Can I run it myself? If yes — run it, don't ask the user to run it for you.
- If it fails — read the error, debug the root cause. Do not retry blindly or suggest reinstall as first fix.
Valid Reasons to Request
- Authentication or authorization you cannot perform
- Approval for destructive or irreversible actions
- Business decisions or priority calls
- Access to systems you have no tools for
Invalid Reasons (Do It Yourself)
- Running commands or scripts
- Checking endpoint availability
- Reading or writing files
- Running tests or verification
- Installing dependencies
- Looking up documentation
- Suggesting CLI commands you haven't verified with
--help
- Asking user to run something you can run via Bash tool
Completion
- Decision made: either acted autonomously or sent a focused request
- If requesting: specific question with context, not a vague "what should I do?"
