clarifying-questions

clarifying-questions is a skill for Claude Code from Lion-1209/Lion-Skills. It costs 29 tokens per session (3,022 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of clarifying-questions, MIT.

Guidance for clarifying vague or assumption-heavy requests before making changes.

In plain words
What is it for?
Finding hidden assumptions, deciding whether clarification is needed, and asking focused questions about requirements.
Why use it?
It reduces rework by identifying the few unanswered questions that could send the implementation in the wrong direction.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the lion-skills plugin — 13 skills shipped together

Good fit Finding hidden assumptions, deciding whether clarification is needed, and asking focused questions about requirements.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions
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 Lion-1209/Lion-Skills --skill clarifying-questions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Lion-1209/Lion-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install lion-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 13 skills.

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 clarifying-questions

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for clarifying-questions

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/lion-1209/lion-skills/clarifying-questions.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,022 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 100% 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 $0.00029 $0.03022
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.01511
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00604
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00302

Measured 12d ago against content hash 0c9badccd81e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

clarifying-questions 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 12d 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

100% identical to clarifying-questions — 0 lines 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/clarifying-questions/SKILL.md · 120 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 120 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Clarifying Questions

概述

在动手前把模糊需求搞清楚。核心:澄清是少数能"以最小成本避免最大返工"的动作——一行代码没写时问清楚,比写完一千行发现方向错便宜几个数量级。但澄清本身也有成本(消耗用户耐心),所以重点是少而准——问对的关键问题,而不是多而全地把所有未知都问一遍。

何时使用

  • 用户一句话甩需求,关键细节缺失("做个登录""加个搜索")
  • 用户描述详细但藏隐含假设("实时搜索"——实时是多实时?数据多大?)
  • 疑似 X-Y problem:用户要的方案可能不是真正需要解决的问题
  • 用户脑里似乎有想法但表达不全

不该用:需求已经清楚(直接做,问反而是拖延);纯技术实现细节的请教(直接答);用户明确说"按你的判断来"且确有默认合理选择(用默认、标注假设即可,不必走完整澄清流程)。

与相邻 skill 的衔接:clarifying-questions 在"澄清需求 → 写 spec → 拆任务"流水线的最上游。需求搞清楚后,进入 spec-writing 把方案固化、再进 task-breakdown 拆任务。注意 task-breakdown / spec-writing 内部也有"澄清"环节——那是嵌入式的小澄清;本 skill 是以澄清为核心动作、处理更早期更模糊需求的专职 skill。

核心内容

先判断:该不该问、问多少

不是所有模糊都该追问。先快速判断需求模糊的"性质",决定要不要问、问多少:

  • 完全无法动手的模糊("做个系统")→ 必须问,不问就是猜,猜错的代价最大。
  • 能动手但有多个合理方向("做个登录"——账号密码 / OAuth / 手机号都合理)→ 问阻塞方向选择的关键 1-2 个,其余用默认假设推进。
  • 只有一个合理默认的小模糊("加个时间戳"——基本就是 created_at)→ 不问,用默认、标注"我假设 X"。

判断尺子:**这个模糊不澄清,会不会让我做错方向、整个返工?**会 → 必须问;不会、只是细节差异 → 用默认假设推进。

问什么:穿透表面,找真正的问题

用户给的需求经常是"表面需求"——描述了想做什么,但藏了假设、漏了上下文、甚至问错了方向。澄清的核心是穿透表面

识别隐含假设:用户描述里的每个形容词、每个限定词,都可能藏着未明说的假设。

  • "实时搜索"——实时是多实时?(100ms?1s?这决定要不要上 ES)
  • "高并发"——多高?(100 QPS 和 10 万 QPS 是两个世界)
  • "支持多语言"——哪几种?UI 多语言还是数据多语言?

把用户的描述逐词过一遍,找出会改变方案的隐含假设,确认它们。

识别 X-Y problem:用户说要解决 Y,但 Y 其实是为了解决 X 的一个候选方案——而 X 可能还有更好的解法。

  • 用户:"帮我写个清理三个月前日志的脚本"(Y)
  • 真正的问题:日志占空间(X)—— 但更好的解法可能是 logrotate、日志聚合、或先查为什么日志暴增(是不是异常?),而不是手写清理脚本

识别信号:用户要的"方案"听起来太具体、太底层(写脚本、改某个字段、加某个配置),而真正的问题(为什么需要这么做)没说。这时先问"你想解决的是什么问题 / 这个需求是怎么来的",把 Y 放回 X 的语境。

挑战不必要的复杂度(但要有度):用户常常在描述里把"必须的"和"锦上添花的"混在一起,甚至把后者当成前者。澄清时主动挑战:"你真的需要 X 吗?还是简单方案就够了?"例:用户要"模糊匹配 + 高亮 + 实时搜索",可能用户名精确匹配就够——别被详细描述带着走、把每条都当硬需求。

挑战的尺度:挑战"锦上添花的",不挑战"用户真在意的"。判断方法是问"如果没有 X,业务还能跑吗"——能跑且只是体验差一点 → 可挑战;跑不了或用户明确在意 → 别砍。过度砍复杂度比过度加复杂度更危险——前者砍掉了用户真需要的东西,后者只是多花点功夫。挑战完把决策权交回用户,而不是替用户决定"这个不需要"。

怎么问:让用户低成本回答

问的方式直接决定用户愿不愿答、答得准不准。

给默认假设让用户确认,而非开放式追问

  • 差(开放式):"你要什么登录方式?"——用户得从头想,消耗耐心。
  • 好(假设式):"我假设账号密码登录 + 邮箱注册(最常见的默认)。如果你要的是 OAuth/手机验证码/SSO,告诉我。"——用户只需确认或一句话纠正。

假设式让用户一句话就能校正方向,把"想答案"的认知负担降到最低。

Read the full file on GitHub · 120 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 12d ago First seen · 120 lines · 29 tokens per session scan A 0c9badccd81e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

clarifying-questions is a skill published in the GitHub repository Lion-1209/Lion-Skills (5 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 3,022 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to clarifying-questions, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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