On the errand · Scope, watch, take back or end the errand. · it acts
Element 91
It asks instead of guessing.
clarifying question · input request
First known
Opened
1970–71SHRDLU asks 'I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHICH PYRAMID YOU MEAN' instead of guessing. Winograd, MIT.
See also: MCP elicitation, spec 2025-06-18.
The same exchange dates Clarify (59).
Someone opened the dated document itself. The source.
Read on
On plan mode's long run of multiple-choice questions, and the person who tires and takes the recommended answer every time.
Maggie Appleton, Planning with Agents: Divided Worlds, Boundary Objects, and Thicker Interfaces (2026)
- ReadingValue
Specimen № 91 — operate freely
Hand it your trip and answer what it asks. Your meeting starts at 14:00.
Fig. 91 — Ask
000 readings · idle
On the errand: its twin
The two series line up in pairs. Each act on a guess sits above the act that does the same thing to an errand, so Clarify and Ask are one move made on two kinds of thing.
Bodies
The act stays put while the hardware changes. These are some of the forms Ask takes.
- clarifying question
- input request
From the 2021 table
This was a tile of its own. On this table it is a form of Ask, and its old address lands here.
- ElicitRenamedThe same act, under a name that says what it does.