clarify

A command that asks targeted questions about unclear parts of a project specification and records the answers in the specification.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to review marked ambiguities, group questions, suggest answers based on existing code, and apply the user's answers to spec.md.
Why use it?
It helps expose uncertainty before coding begins, reducing avoidable rework and incorrect assumptions.

Command for Claude Code

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/marcusgoll/spec-flow/clarify
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/marcusgoll/Spec-Flow

Made for: Claude Code.

Per session 24 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 6,021 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00024 $0.06021
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.03010
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.01204
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00602

Measured 2d ago against content hash 31b5912db13b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

clarify scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/commands/phases/clarify.md · 801 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 801 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/clarify — Specification Clarifier (Thin Wrapper)

v11.0 Architecture: This command spawns the isolated clarify-phase-agent via Task(). All clarification logic runs in isolated context with question batching.

Active Feature: !ls -td specs/[0-9]*-* 2>/dev/null | head -1 || echo "none"

Interaction State: !cat specs/*/interaction-state.yaml 2>/dev/null | head -10 || echo "none"

Architecture (v11.0 - Phase Isolation):

/clarify → Task(clarify-phase-agent) → Q&A loop if needed → updated spec.md

Agent responsibilities:

  • Scan spec.md for [NEEDS CLARIFICATION] markers
  • Map ambiguities to question bank templates
  • Return batched questions (max 3 at a time)
  • Apply answers atomically to spec.md
  • Cite repo precedents for recommendations

Key principle: Planning is 80% of success — thorough clarification prevents costly rework.

Workflow position: spec → clarify → plan → tasks → implement → optimize → ship

Anti-Hallucination Rules

CRITICAL: Follow these rules to prevent fabricating ambiguities or solutions.

  1. Never invent ambiguities not present in spec.md.

    • ❌ BAD: "The spec doesn't mention how to handle edge cases" (without reading it)
    • ✅ GOOD: Read spec.md, quote ambiguous sections: "spec.md:45 says 'users can edit' but doesn't specify edit permissions"
    • Quote verbatim with line numbers: spec.md:120-125: '[exact quote]'
  2. Always quote the unclear text and cite line numbers for every question.

    • When flagging ambiguity: spec.md:120-125: '[exact quote]' - unclear whether this means X or Y
    • Don't paraphrase unclear text - show it verbatim
    • Cite line numbers for all ambiguities
  3. Never invent "best practice" without evidence.

    • Don't say "Best practice is..." without evidence
    • Source recommendations: "Similar feature in specs/002-auth used JWT per plan.md:45"
    • If no precedent exists, say: "No existing pattern found, recommend researching..."

Read the full file on GitHub · 801 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 801 lines · 24 tokens per session scan A 31b5912db13b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

clarify is a command published in the GitHub repository marcusgoll/Spec-Flow (91 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 6,021 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.