compose:ask

Asking the User

The Rule

Every time you need the user to decide, clarify, or approve something, route it through the question tool. Never stop the loop with a natural-language question ("Does this look right?", "Should I proceed?", "Which would you prefer?"). A natural-language question ends your turn without finishing the task; a question tool call does not.

This means: the loop only ends when the task is actually complete — never because you paused to ask in prose.

How to Ask

• Structured options — when the decision has known choices, list them as options (each with a short label and a description).
• Open-ended — when you can't enumerate good options, pass empty options. An empty options list renders as a free-text prompt: the user types whatever they want. So anything you'd normally ask in prose can be asked through question instead.
• One question per concern — don't bundle unrelated decisions; ask them as separate questions (or separate calls).
• Don't repeat the question in prose — the tool already renders it. Just call the tool.

question({
  questions: [{
    question: "Which auth strategy should I use?",
    header: "Auth",
    options: [
      { label: "Session cookies", description: "Server-side sessions, simplest" },
      { label: "JWT", description: "Stateless, good for multiple services" },
    ],
  }],
})

When No User Is Available

There are two situations where you won't get a human answer. The decision behavior is identical in both — you pick the best option for unattended/headless execution yourself and keep going. They differ only in whether the question tool is reached this turn:

1. Question tool absent (e.g. run/eval, where question is denied) — the tool isn't in your list. You never call it; decide and proceed directly.
2. [Never-Ask] response (never-ask is on) — you do call question, but instead of a user answer the tool returns a [Never-Ask] directive. Re-pick from the options you proposed, explicitly state your choice and reasoning in your response text, and continue.