draft

Extract

From the conversation/context/user:

• The choice the user cannot make yet — what has to get decided, and why deciding it needs something to exist first.
• Everything already fixed — constraints, preferences, and decisions the conversation has settled: the line between what the user gave and what the building will have to pick.

Gate

Proceed only when: nothing exists for the user to react to, and no single question would let them specify what to build — something has to exist before they can say more.

Anything else, say which in one plain line — never build anyway:

• One direct question would let the user specify it → ask it in one plain line and proceed with what the answer settles. Never build what the user could have specified.
• The user has said what to build, but the words admit two readings that would build different things → use clarify skill.
• What's missing lives in the user, not the world — they hold it but cannot yet put it into words → use elicit skill.
• The thing already exists and a claim about it needs a committed verdict → use judge skill.

Make

• Build the smallest complete version — real enough to react to, small enough to throw away.
• One version, unless the choices genuinely fork; then the fewest versions that show the fork.
• Prefer the version the user can mark up over the one they can only accept or reject.

Surface

For every choice the building picked that the fixed list doesn't cover, state:

• the choice,
• what you picked,
• what would make you pick otherwise.

A choice the user never sees is a decision they never made.

Output

Hand the built thing back with its surfaced choices — for reaction, not approval:

• name where to look first,
• name which surfaced choice you are least sure of.

That is the whole pass: build, surface, hand back, once. Never iterate toward an approval — wait for the reaction.

When the reaction comes, check what it leaves unresolved that would change what gets built: