resolve-before-asking SKILL.md skillA
resolve-before-asking from garrytan/gbrain is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add garrytan/gbrain/resolve-before-asking@v1.0.0Pins v1.0.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- garrytan/gbrain
- Path
plugin-variants/gbrain-coding/skills/resolve-before-asking/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 4
- Latest version
- v1.0.0, committed Oct 7, 2026
- First version recorded
- Aug 17, 2026
- Size
- 13,847 bytes
- Repository stars
- 31,587
- License
- MIT
Gate on identity questions to the user. Before any "who is X?" (or role / relationship question) reaches the user, exhaust the brain's lookup chain: think → search + page read → mounted sources → timeline/graph → web. If escalation survives the chain, ask WITH a hypothesis, never a bare unknown. Also owns the no-placeholders-at-ingest rule: pages created during bulk ingestion get their relationship/role resolved immediately.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Resolve Before Asking — Exhaust the Brain Before Bothering the User > **Convention:** see [conventions/brain-first.md](../conventions/brain-first.md) > for the base lookup chain (search → query → get_page → external APIs). This > skill extends that chain one hop further, to the human boundary: asking the > user is the LAST resort, after the brain AND external escalation, not a > shortcut around them. > **Convention:** see [_brain-filing-rules.md](../_brain-filing-rules.md) — > pages touched by the ingest-resolution section file by primary subject > (`people/`, `companies/`). ## Purpose **Never ask the user "who is X?" when the answer already exists in the brain.** The memory answers before the human is bothered — that is the product promise. This skill defines the lookup chain that runs before any entity-identification question is sent to the user, and the escalation format when asking really is justified. ## The Bug This Kills The pattern: the agent encounters an entity with a rich brain page — timeline entries, meeting history, an imported message archive — and instead of reading them, asks the user "who is X?". This is lazy escalation. It spends the user's …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add garrytan/gbrain/resolve-before-asking@sha256:34b20f246798894cThe line at the top of this page pins the label v1.0.0, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_f5agoc2r36r6uhe2)
3 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 4 versions of this file, between Aug 17, 2026 and Oct 7, 2026, about one every 17 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| v1.0.0 latest | 2026-10-07 | 590bb9a | 13,847 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.0 | 2026-10-05 | 6509f9b | 13,846 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.0 | 2026-10-04 | 739e5cc | 13,678 B | A | view · diff |
| v1.0.0 | 2026-08-17 | 489e277 | 13,123 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (13847 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
garrytan/gbrain · 31,587 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-11-06 · branch master
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_f5agoc2r36r6uhe2 GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=garrytan/gbrain/resolve-before-asking GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/34b20f246798894c805e0dbf9294210e8eefc6c594000df965293bcad4869a5c
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.