cf-ask

/cf-ask

CLI Requirement: OPTIONAL — Uses the memory MCP from coding-friend-cli for fast indexed search and storage. Without the CLI: falls back to grep over docs/memory/ and direct file writes. Full functionality preserved, slower memory recall. See CLI requirements.

Answer the question: $ARGUMENTS

Purpose

Quick, focused Q&A about the codebase. Proactively explores code to find the answer, then saves the Q&A to project memory so it can be referenced later.

• Unlike /cf-research: single focused answer, no multi-doc output
• Unlike /cf-remember: proactively explores the codebase to answer vs extracting knowledge already in conversation

Folder

Output goes to {docsDir}/memory/ (default: docs/memory/). Check .coding-friend/config.json for custom docsDir if it exists.

IMPORTANT — path resolution:

• Use MAIN_REPO_ROOT from the SessionStart bootstrap context (injected via session-init.sh). If absent, fall back to running pwd for $CWD and use $CWD as MAIN_REPO_ROOT.
• Read config from CF_CONFIG_FILE (= $MAIN_REPO_ROOT/.coding-friend/config.json) — do NOT search sub-folders
• Use CF_DOCS_ROOT as the docs base dir (= $MAIN_REPO_ROOT/{docsDir} where docsDir comes from config, default docs)
• Always resolve file_path as an absolute path: {CF_DOCS_ROOT}/memory/{category}/{name}.md
• Never use relative paths in write specs — they may resolve incorrectly when the working directory contains nested git repos

Workflow

Step 0: Custom Guide

Custom guide — auto-loaded below (if the raw command shows instead of its output, run it yourself):

bash "<plugin-root>/lib/load-custom-guide.sh" cf-ask

If output is not empty, integrate returned sections: ## Before → before first step, ## Rules → apply throughout, ## After → after final step.

Step 1: Parse the Question

1. Read $ARGUMENTS as the question
2. If no question provided, ask the user what they want to know
3. Identify keywords and likely relevant areas (modules, features, patterns)
4. Classify the question type — check if the question is a flow question. A flow question asks about how something works end-to-end, how components interact, or what happens when a process runs. Trigger words: "how does X work", "flow of", "lifecycle", "sequence", "process", "when X happens", "walk me through", "how are X connected", "what triggers", "what happens when", "pipeline", "chain". Non-flow questions (lookup/definition/pattern/why) do NOT trigger this path.