ask

Ask Skill

Answer questions about AI-written code by finding the original prompts and conversations that produced it, then embodying the author agent's perspective to answer.

Main Agent's Job (you)

You do the prep work, then hand off to a fast, tightly scoped subagent:

1. Resolve the file path and line range — check these sources in order:

   a) Editor selection context (most common). When the user has lines selected in their editor, a <system-reminder> is injected into the conversation like:

   The user selected the lines 2 to 4 from /path/to/file.rs:
   _flush_logs(args: &[String]) {
       flush::handle_flush_logs(args);
   }
   

   Extract the file path and line range directly from this. This is the primary way users will invoke /ask — they select code, then type something like "/ask why is this like that" without naming the file or lines.

   b) Explicit file/line references — "on line 42", "lines 10-50 of src/main.rs" → use directly.

   c) Named symbol — mentions a variable/function/class → Read the file, find where it's defined, extract line numbers.

   d) File without line specifics → whole file (omit --lines).

   e) No file, no lines, no selection context, no identifiable code reference → Do NOT attempt to guess or search. Just reply:

   Select some code or mention a specific file/symbol, then /ask your question.

   Stop here. Do not spawn a subagent.

2. Spawn one subagent with the template below. Use max_turns: 4.

3. Relay the answer to the user. That's it.

Subagent Configuration

Task tool settings:
  subagent_type: "general-purpose"
  max_turns: 4

The subagent gets only Bash and Read. It does NOT get Glob, Grep, or Task. It runs at most 4 turns — this is a fast lookup, not a research project.

Choosing Between blame --show-prompt and search

If you want to read an entire file or range of lines AND the corresponding prompts behind them, use git-ai blame --show-prompt. This is better than search for this use case — it gives you every line's authorship plus the full prompt JSON in one call.