clarify-before-action

clarify-before-action is a skill for Codex from Zhangs-11/zs-skills. It costs 139 tokens per session (1,309 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A clarification workflow for complex coding tasks that uses read-only investigation and one focused question at a time before any changes are made.

In plain words
What is it for?
Clarifying requirements, scope, users, constraints, edge cases, and measurable completion criteria before implementation.
Why use it?
It reduces rework caused by unclear goals, missing constraints, or different assumptions about what “done” means.

Skill for Codex

Written for Codex: agents/openai.yaml present. Also seen: $skill-name invocation.

Good fit Clarifying requirements, scope, users, constraints, edge cases, and measurable completion criteria before implementation.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action
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 Zhangs-11/zs-skills --skill clarify-before-action
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Zhangs-11/zs-skills

Made for: Codex.

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 clarify-before-action

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action/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 clarify-before-action

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/zhangs-11/zs-skills/clarify-before-action.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 139 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,309 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 original No closer match found 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 $0.00139 $0.01309
Opus 5 $0.00069 $0.00655
Sonnet 5 $0.00028 $0.00262
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00131

Measured 11d ago against content hash ad57bc108958, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

clarify-before-action 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 11d 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.

clarify-before-action/SKILL.md · 70 lines

What it actually says

行动前澄清

先形成双方一致、可验证的任务定义,再执行。不得用一份看似完整的方案代替与用户确认真实需求。

推理底盘与权限

  • 先完整读取并使用 $first-principles-adversarial-review,从真实目标、事实、约束、上下游、替代方案和反证重新推导。
  • 可以自主进行只读调查,例如读取代码、配置、日志、文档、历史差异和已有同类实现;能自行查明的事实不要反问用户。
  • 澄清阶段不得修改代码、配置、文档或数据,不得提交、推送、部署或更新外部系统。
  • 只有在用户确认任务理解和拟执行范围后,才能进入实现;该确认只授权当次明确范围,不授权删除、提交、推送、部署、数据库写入等另有确认要求的操作。

工作流

1. 先调查,再决定问什么

识别用户最终想改善的可观察结果,而非照抄其初始方案。检查当前事实源、相关上下游、既有同类实现和至少一个可行替代方向。区分:

  • 已验证事实;
  • 用户明确给出的硬约束;
  • 可协商偏好;
  • 尚未验证的假设。

只把无法通过只读调查获得、且会实质改变范围或方案的信息留给用户回答。

2. 使用苏格拉底式单问题追问

每轮只问一个最关键的问题并等待回答。问题应优先消除最上游、最可能导致返工的不确定性,通常依次关注目标、使用者、现状、边界、约束、异常场景和完成标准,但不要机械套问卷。

不要在一个句子中塞入多个问题,不要把预设答案藏进选项,也不要重复询问已经能从事实源确认的内容。根据新回答更新理解;若回答暴露矛盾,先指出矛盾及证据,再继续问一个问题。

当以下内容已足够支持行动时停止追问:为什么要做、为谁做、当前机制与痛点、期望结果、范围内外、关键约束、主要异常分支和可验证完成标准。不要追求无法证明的“完全理解”,也不要为了仪式无限追问。

3. 形成三要素任务简报

确认前默认整理以下三类信息,但表达应服从理解需要,不必机械套模板:

  1. 背景:用人话说明事情为何产生、当前怎样运作;解释小白理解任务所必需的名词、关键方法、角色和上下游。
  2. 需求:说明真正要达到的结果、目标用户、触发场景、范围、约束和验收标准;区分真实目标与用户最初提出的候选解法。
  3. 痛点:说明现状与目标之间的差距、根本阻碍、影响以及仍未验证的风险。

复杂关系适合图示时,使用最小有用的流程图、时序图、状态图、因果图或对比表;简单问题用短文即可。

4. 自审规格,并判断是否需要最小验证探针

把任务简报交给用户确认前,先做一次规格自审并直接修正能自行修正的问题:

  • 是否仍有占位符、模糊代词或没有定义的名词;
  • 背景、需求、痛点、范围和验收标准之间是否矛盾;
  • 是否遗漏生产者、消费者、关键集成点、异常分支或明确不做的事项;
  • 验收标准是否可观察,是否可能出现双方都声称完成但理解不同的情况。

再识别一个最可能导致整体返工的关键假设。若它能以明显低于完整实现的成本被证伪,向用户提出一个最小验证探针,写清:唯一假设、最小验证物或测试、可观察结果、预先定义的失败阈值、时间上限,以及验证后保留还是丢弃。探针只是待确认选项,不得在澄清阶段擅自执行。

不要为了显得严谨而强行做探针。事实明确、风险低,或验证成本接近完整实现时,直接说明无需先验证并进入确认。

5. 请求明确确认

用自己的话复述已经自审过的任务简报,并列出准备执行的范围、明确不做的事项,以及必要时建议先运行的最小验证探针。然后只请求一个确认:当前理解是否准确、是否可以按该范围开始。

未获确认时继续澄清,不开始实现。用户修正后更新简报并再次确认,不能把早先确认沿用到已经实质变化的新范围。

完成标准

开始执行前确认:关键事实有来源,主要反例已检查,生产者、消费者和集成点没有明显遗漏,事实与假设已分开,规格不存在明显占位、矛盾或歧义,验收标准可观察,高风险假设已判断是否值得先做最小验证,用户已明确同意当前任务理解和执行范围。

Files

What ships with it

3 files 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. 11d ago First seen · 70 lines · 139 tokens per session scan A ad57bc108958

Subscribe to this mod's changes

clarify-before-action is a skill published in the GitHub repository Zhangs-11/zs-skills (2 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 139 tokens to every session and 1,309 once invoked, about $0.0007 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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