draft · diff
git:20260817.0cc07d9 to git:20260817.f04083f
4 added, 49 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: draft
description: Build the thing the user can't specify, choices surfaced. Use when the user needs something to react to before they can choose.
---
- ## Extract
-
- From the conversation/context/user:
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- - The **choice** the user cannot make yet — what has to get decided, and why deciding it needs something to exist first.
- - Everything already **fixed** — constraints, preferences, and decisions the conversation has settled: the line between what the user gave and what the building will have to pick.
-
- ## Gate
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- Proceed only when: nothing exists for the user to react to, and no single question would let them specify what to build — something has to exist before they can say more.
-
- Anything else, say which in one plain line — never build anyway:
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- - One direct question would let the user specify it → ask it in one plain line and proceed with what the answer settles. Never build what the user could have specified.
- - The user has said what to build, but the words admit two readings that would build different things → use **clarify** skill.
- - What's missing lives in the user, not the world — they hold it but cannot yet put it into words → use **elicit** skill.
- - The thing already exists and a claim about it needs a committed verdict → use **judge** skill.
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- ## Make
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- - Build the smallest complete version — real enough to react to, small enough to throw away.
- - One version, unless the choices genuinely fork; then the fewest versions that show the fork.
- - Prefer the version the user can mark up over the one they can only accept or reject.
-
- ## Surface
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- For every choice the building picked that the fixed list doesn't cover, state:
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- - the choice,
- - what you picked,
- - what would make you pick otherwise.
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- A choice the user never sees is a decision they never made.
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- ## Output
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- Hand the built thing back with its surfaced choices — for reaction, not approval:
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- - name where to look first,
- - name which surfaced choice you are least sure of.
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- That is the whole pass: build, surface, hand back, once. Never iterate toward an approval — wait for the reaction.
+ Build the smallest complete version — real enough to react to, small enough to throw away. One version, unless the choices genuinely fork; then the fewest versions that show the fork. Prefer the version the user can mark up over the one they can only accept or reject.
- When the reaction comes, check what it leaves unresolved that would change what gets built:
+ For every choice the building picked that the conversation had not already settled, state the choice, what you picked, and what would make you pick otherwise.
- - Nothing — the reaction settles the choice → proceed with the work under what it settled.
- - The reaction's words admit two readings that would build different things → use **clarify** skill.
- - The reaction shows the user holds something they cannot yet put into words → use **elicit** skill.
- - The reaction is a claim about the built thing that needs a committed verdict → use **judge** skill.
- - The reaction calls for something built differently → that is a new building, not this one continued.
+ Hand the built thing back with its surfaced choices — for reaction, not approval. Name where to look first, and which surfaced choice you are least sure of. Build, surface, hand back, once; then wait for the reaction. Every surfaced choice stays open until the user reacts to it.
- The building is spent once it's handed back — anything further runs under the branch picked here, never as another version of this one.
+ One direct question would let the user specify it → ask it. The words admit two readings that would build different things → use **clarify** skill. What's missing lives in the user, not the world → use **elicit** skill. The thing already exists and a claim about it needs a committed verdict → use **judge** skill.