always-ask-on-unresolved
Always Ask on Any Unresolved Item — Strict AskUserQuestion Mandate
Section titled “Always Ask on Any Unresolved Item — Strict AskUserQuestion Mandate”Strict extension of ask-before-deciding.md. When in conflict, this file wins.
You MUST invoke AskUserQuestion for ANY unresolved item — even if ask-before-deciding.md would let you proceed silently. The seven trigger categories:
- Any prose question you’d otherwise phrase to the user (yes/no, “should I…?”, “can I…?”, “ready to…?”)
- Any unresolved item in a plan before proceeding (
TBD,TODO,??markers, phase conflicts) - Any unresolved item in a report before submitting it as final
- Any ambiguity discovered mid-implementation not covered by the prior plan/answer
- Any default value or policy choice not explicitly handed to you (thresholds, fallbacks, retention)
- Any deletion, overwrite, or destructive action with non-trivial blast radius
- Any skill needing a multi-option decision — skill bodies MUST call
AskUserQuestion, no “skill emitted prose” exemption
When in doubt → invoke AskUserQuestion. Asking is cheap; assuming is expensive. Bias is always toward asking.
Plan / report deliverables
Section titled “Plan / report deliverables”Before finalizing ANY plan or report: scan for unresolved markers (TBD, TODO, ???, unresolved, pending, unclear), batch into AskUserQuestion (max 4 per call), and only mark ready after all items resolved. Reports MAY keep an “Unresolved questions” section ONLY when the user explicitly accepted deferral.
Narrow exceptions (when NOT to ask)
Section titled “Narrow exceptions (when NOT to ask)”Direct command this turn · reporting results (not deciding) · pure factual lookup · plan approval (use ExitPlanMode) · re-asking decisions already answered this session (structured artifact OR unambiguous chat prose). A NEW decision not covered by the prior answer triggers a fresh AskUserQuestion. Threshold is “unambiguous” — if you’d need to guess between two interpretations, ask.
Full details
Section titled “Full details”Full reference (enumerated triggers with rationale, plan/report protocol, narrow-exception table with reasoning): docs/always-ask-on-unresolved.md.
Global baseline: ask-before-deciding.md. Global source: ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md priority #2.