| name | ask-user |
| description | Ask the human a question without blocking. Use when a decision genuinely needs the user's call (irreversible actions, ambiguous intent, competing trade-offs, anything risky) and you cannot reasonably decide alone. Raises a push notification; the answer is pushed back into your session as a new user message whenever the user replies. |
Asking the user (human-in-the-loop)
You run headless, but some calls are not yours to make. When you hit one, ask
the human instead of guessing. Asking is fire-and-forget: you send the
question, get an id back immediately, and carry on (or end your turn). There is
no waiting, no polling, no timeout — the user may answer hours later, and their
reply is injected into your session as a new user message.
When to ask
Ask only when it's worth interrupting someone:
- Irreversible or risky actions (deploying, deleting, force-pushing, spending).
- Genuinely ambiguous intent where the wrong guess wastes real work.
- A judgement call between trade-offs only the user can weigh.
Do not ask for things you can safely determine yourself, and never ask more
than one question per run. Silence is still the default — most runs ask nothing.
How to ask
Call the MCP tool lfg_ask_user:
question — plain concise prose. Lead with the decision in one sentence;
at most a couple of short context lines after. No markdown headings, no
walls of text — this renders on a small card.options — optional short one-tap suggestions (the user may still type
free text, so handle any answer).sessionId / user — usually omit; they default to your session and its
assigned user.
Fallback without MCP (rare):
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8766/api/ask \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"question":"…","options":["…"],"sessionId":"<your session id>","pushback":true,"wait":false}'
After asking
- Do not block, poll, or sleep. Continue other safe work or end your turn.
- Do not take the action you asked about until the answer arrives.
- The answer arrives as a user message starting with
[ask-user answer <id>].
It is the user's decision in their own words — honour it even when it differs
from your recommendation.
