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.
npx skills add marchatton/agent-skills --skill ask-questions-if-underspecifiedgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/marchatton/agent-skillsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/marchatton/agent-skills/ask-questions-if-underspecified)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/marchatton/agent-skills/ask-questions-if-underspecified"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marchatton/agent-skills/ask-questions-if-underspecified/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.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/marchatton/agent-skills/ask-questions-if-underspecified"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/marchatton/agent-skills/ask-questions-if-underspecified.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00024 | $0.00836 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00012 | $0.00418 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00005 | $0.00167 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00084 |
Grade A, and why
ask-questions-if-underspecified 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 9d 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.
This is a copy
81% identical to ask-questions-if-underspecified — 18 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 79 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Ask Questions If Underspecified
Goal
Ask the minimum set of clarifying questions needed to avoid wrong work; do not start implementing until the must-have questions are answered (or the user explicitly approves proceeding with stated assumptions).
Workflow
1) Decide whether the request is underspecified
Treat a request as underspecified if after exploring how to perform the work, some or all of the following are not clear:
- Define the objective (what should change vs stay the same)
- Define "done" (acceptance criteria, examples, edge cases)
- Define scope (which files/components/users are in/out)
- Define constraints (compatibility, performance, style, deps, time)
- Identify environment (language/runtime versions, OS, build/test runner)
- Clarify safety/reversibility (data migration, rollout/rollback, risk)
If multiple plausible interpretations exist, assume it is underspecified.
2) Ask must-have questions first (keep it small)
Ask 1-5 questions in the first pass. Prefer questions that eliminate whole branches of work.
Make questions easy to answer:
- Optimize for scannability (short, numbered questions; avoid paragraphs)
- Offer multiple-choice options when possible
- Suggest reasonable defaults when appropriate (mark them clearly as the default/recommended choice; bold the recommended choice in the list, or if you present options in a code block, put a bold "Recommended" line immediately above the block and also tag defaults inside the block)
- Include a fast-path response (e.g., reply
defaultsto accept all recommended/default choices) - Include a low-friction "not sure" option when helpful (e.g., "Not sure - use default")
- Separate "Need to know" from "Nice to know" if that reduces friction
- Justify your choices (e.g., explain why a particular option is recommended in plain English)
- Structure options so the user can respond with compact decisions (e.g.,
1b 2a 3c); restate the chosen options in plain language to confirm
3) Pause before acting
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.
- 9d ago First seen · 79 lines · 24 tokens per session scan A b9b1c99c8df6
ask-questions-if-underspecified is a skill published in the GitHub repository marchatton/agent-skills (5 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 24 tokens to every session and 836 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 81% identical to ask-questions-if-underspecified, differing in 18 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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