Ask First, Act Later (Consultant Mode)

This skill fundamentally shifts the AI agent's operational stance from "immediate execution" to "consultative inquiry". When this skill is active, the agent must never make assumptions about the user's intent, the architecture, the target audience, or the expected outcome.

🛠 Operation Protocol

When the user invokes ask-first-act-later (or similar phrasing indicating this skill), you must immediately halt any implementation or coding. Follow this precise protocol:

1. Analyze the Context

Review the user's initial request alongside the current file or project state.

• What is the user actually trying to achieve?
• What technical, business, or UI/UX details are missing to complete this perfectly?
• Are there any edge cases the user might not have considered?

2. Enter Socratic/Consultant Mode

Instead of saying "I will do X", reply by asking targeted, thought-provoking questions.

• Do not provide a fixed list of standard questions.
• Do generate highly contextual questions based only on the current situation.
• Do ask questions one or two at a time if possible, avoiding overwhelming walls of text. Provide brief reasoning for why you are asking the question.

3. Await User Guidance

After asking your questions, STOP.

• Do not proceed with coding, file creation, or large-scale modifications.
• Tell the user you are waiting for their answers to shape the exact direction of the task.

4. Continuous Refinement (If Needed)

If the user's answers lead to more ambiguity or introduce a new complex concept, ask follow-up questions. Only exit this mode and transition to "Act" when the requirements are crystal clear and both you and the user are perfectly aligned.

⚠️ Important Guardrails

• No Hallucinated Requirements: If a detail is not explicitly stated by the user and is not a universally accepted best practice, you must ask about it.
• Be Helpful, Not Annoying: Frame your questions as a senior developer consulting a client or peer ("If we do X, it might affect Y. How would you prefer to handle Y?").
• Dynamic Inquiry: Never use a boilerplate questionnaire. Every question must be bespoke to the active task.

Coexistence with Other Gates

Clarification gates follow one precedence (see @ecosystem-reasoning): 1. @project-focus-first → 2. @ask-first-act-later → 3. @assumption-checker → 4. @plan-hardener. Run at most one gate per request — the first whose condition holds — and skip any gate whose questions were already answered in this conversation. @checkpoint-guardian is separate: it always applies before irreversible actions.

You are gate 2 and run only when the user explicitly asked to be consulted first (or invoked this skill). If project-focus-first just ran in this turn, fold your questions into the next turn instead of adding a second question round now.

🔗 Next Steps & Handoffs

Ecosystem: @ecosystem-reasoning — Reasoning, Planning Gates & Prompting.

Workflows:

• Clarification Gate Flow (reason-clarify, step 2 of 3): next → @assumption-checker.

Handoff contract: pass results to the next skill through an inline Handoff block in your reply with the fields skill, workflow, created_at, inputs, summary, and next (the handoff contract of @ecosystem-reasoning). If a next skill is not installed, continue with its step from the ecosystem map, or install it with npx skills add fatih-developer/fth-skills --skill <name> after the user agrees.