ask-user

ask-user is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from cynthiajones34/GBrain. It costs 60 tokens per session (2,061 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of ask-user, MIT.

A reusable way for an agent to ask the user to choose between a small number of actions before continuing. It works across messaging apps, command lines, and other agent interfaces.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps choose filing locations, confirm destructive changes, and resolve requests with several valid interpretations.
Why use it?
It prevents an agent from guessing when a request is ambiguous or could change or delete data. Execution pauses until the user responds.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Which agent this was written for is unclear — built for gbrain. Also seen: built for gbrain.

Good fit It helps choose filing locations, confirm destructive changes, and resolve requests with several valid interpretations.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/cynthiajones34/gbrain/ask-user
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.

Any agent
npx skills add cynthiajones34/GBrain --skill ask-user
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cynthiajones34/GBrain

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ask-user

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cynthiajones34/gbrain/ask-user.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/cynthiajones34/gbrain/ask-user)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cynthiajones34/gbrain/ask-user"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cynthiajones34/gbrain/ask-user.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 60 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,061 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 97% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 5.1 $0.00060 $0.02061
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.01030
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00412
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00206

Measured 7d ago against content hash a40f484721e5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ask-user 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 7d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

97% identical to ask-user — 1 line differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/ask-user/SKILL.md · 254 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 254 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Ask User — Choice Gate Pattern

Contract

  • Present 2-4 options (no more — decision paralysis kicks in past 4).
  • Always include an escape hatch (Skip, Cancel, or "none of these").
  • Stop the turn immediately after presenting choices. No follow-up tool calls, no preemptive action, no default-and-proceed.
  • The user's response triggers the next turn. Acknowledge briefly, then branch.
  • One question per message — never stack multiple choice gates.
  • Self-explanatory option labels: action verb plus brief qualifier, not "Option 1".

What This Is

A formalized pattern for presenting users with 2-4 options and stopping execution until they respond. This is the canonical way to gate on user input in any GBrain-powered agent.

This is NOT a traditional async/await. In an LLM agent, "gating" means:

  1. Present the choices (buttons or numbered options)
  2. Explicitly stop the current turn (do not proceed)
  3. The user's response triggers the next turn
  4. Read the response and branch accordingly

When To Use

  • Ambiguous requests with multiple valid interpretations
  • Destructive operations (bulk deletes, overwrites)
  • Filing/routing decisions ("where should this go?")
  • Priority triage ("which should I do first?")
  • Cold-start phase gates ("ready for the next import source?")
  • Any fork where the wrong default wastes significant work

When NOT To Use

  • Clear, unambiguous instructions → just do it
  • Low-stakes decisions → pick the best option and mention it
  • Time-critical operations where delay costs more than a wrong choice
  • When the user has already expressed a preference

How To Present Choices

Platform-agnostic format (works everywhere)

Present choices as a clear question with numbered or labeled options:

🔀 **How should I handle this?**

[context about the decision — 1-3 lines max]

1. **Option A** — short description
2. **Option B** — short description
3. **Option C** — short description
4. **Skip** — do nothing for now

With inline buttons (Telegram, Discord, Slack)

Read the full file on GitHub · 254 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. 7d ago First seen · 254 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A a40f484721e5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ask-user is a skill published in the GitHub repository cynthiajones34/GBrain (0 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 2,061 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 97% identical to ask-user, differing in 1 line, and is treated as a copy.