ask-questions

Ask Questions Command

Interactively walk the user through answering questions from a JSON file produced by the /define-questions command.

Pipeline component: This command walks through a JSON question file interactively. For the combined extract → answer → update workflow, use /finish-document.

Input Validation

Required Arguments:

• <questions-file> - Path to the JSON file created by /define-questions

Optional Arguments:

• --force - Proceed even if input or output schema validation fails (not recommended)

Validation: If the questions file path is missing, display:

Usage: /ask-questions <questions-file> [--force]
Example: /ask-questions questions-PRD-20260110-143052.json
Example: /ask-questions reference/questions-requirements-20260114.json

Input

The user will provide a JSON file path after the slash command (e.g., /ask-questions questions-PRD-20260110.json). This file must follow the structure created by /define-questions.

Instructions

1. Load and Validate

• Read the specified JSON file
• Validate it conforms to the questions schema structure (see validation rules below)
• Verify it contains the required questions array and metadata
• Load the original source document referenced in metadata.source_document
• Check for existing answer file (resume support - see below)
• Report the total number of questions to the user

1.1 Resume Support

Before starting the Q&A session, check for an incomplete previous session:

1. Use the Glob tool to find existing answers-[source-document]-*.json files in the same directory as the questions file

2. If found, read the file and check metadata.status. If status is "in_progress": Report the session state as prose — previous file, progress (15 of 47 answered (32%)), and last activity — then ask with AskUserQuestion, exactly as specified in references/patterns/workflow.md:

   {
     "questions": [
       {
         "question": "How would you like to proceed with the interrupted session?",
         "header": "Resume",
         "multiSelect": false,
         "options": [
           {
             "label": "Resume (Recommended)",
             "description": "Continue from question 16 with all previous answers preserved"
           },
           {
             "label": "Start Fresh",
             "description": "Begin a new session; previous answers are backed up to a .bak file first"
           },
           {
             "label": "Abort",
             "description": "Exit without making changes"
           }
         ]
       }
     ]
   }
   

3. On resume: Load existing answers and continue from metadata.last_question_answered + 1. Each answer entry has an answered: true/false field to identify which questions have responses.

4. On start fresh: Backup existing file (rename with .bak suffix) and start from question 1