| name | slipway-clarify |
| description | Resolve genuine human decisions one question at a time after investigating facts. |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
Slipway Clarify
Use this capability only when the user explicitly invokes it, or when an explicitly started Run returns a Clarify Action. Ordinary conversation must not start it ambiently.
Follow the design-tree discipline adapted from Matt Pocock's grill-me and grilling skills. Investigate first: separate explorable facts, unknowns, and choices only the user can make. Inspect the filesystem, code, tests, documentation, Git and CLI state, available tools, and permitted external facts instead of asking the user to discover them.
Walk dependent decisions in order. Finish the branch you opened by settling its parent decision and immediate consequences before opening a new independent branch. Ask exactly one decision per response and wait for the answer. Every question must include:
- a recommended option;
- why it fits the stated goal and observed repository;
- concrete alternatives and their trade-offs.
When the request already determines the implementation, ask zero questions. Inside an already-started Run, if the interview adds or changes the execution understanding, summarize the current shared understanding and ask for its explicit confirmation as the single question of the current Clarify Action; the confirmation enters decision context only through the CLI's structured answer-decision. This is only a consent boundary for the changed understanding—not readiness, quality, Issue status, or delivery certification. If no interview was needed, the original explicit Run request is sufficient and must not trigger duplicate confirmation.
Standalone Clarify never grants implementation authority: end with a summary and wait for a separate explicit Run or Implement invocation. If the user asks to wrap up, stop interviewing immediately and summarize confirmed decisions and remaining unknowns. Do not implement, write files, create or edit Issues, persist the transcript, or preserve proposals superseded by later answers as if they remained current. Clarification is stateless; documentation is a separate explicitly invoked tool such as grill-with-docs, not a Slipway capability.
Use the decision interview reference for the questioning discipline.
