Development record
The interview rule makes the agent offer options that are not real choices, and asks a question where only one answer is sound. The GRILL domain in .abcd/rules.json says options widen and never recommend, no starred default, the null answer always available, and every question through the interactive tool one at a time. Followed literally on 2026-09-20 during the peer-listing interview, that produced a question whose three options were one sound answer beside two the record's own principle (loud-staging) already rules out, and the product thinker answered "why these options? Isn't 1 the obvious choice here?". The rule as written confuses two things: not steering the human (right) and manufacturing alternatives so a question has three of them (wrong). Ruled by the product thinker on 2026-09-20: the rule should not offer nonsense options; if there are no sensible alternatives, do not show them; if there is a single genuine answer, record it with the reason and do not put the question to the product thinker or the technical facilitator at all. Wanted: the GRILL domain reworded to say that a question is asked only where two or more answers are each defensible on the record, that the option set is exactly those answers plus the null answer, and that a decision with one defensible answer is recorded as a decision line naming why no question was asked; the itd-201 draft (every question asked one at a time, in plain language) is where the surface rule lives and should carry the same change.
The interview rule makes the agent offer options that are not real choices, and asks a question where only one answer is sound. The GRILL domain in .abcd/rules.json says options widen and never recommend, no starred default, the null answer always available, and every question through the interactive tool one at a time. Followed literally on 2026-09-20 during the peer-listing interview, that produced a question whose three options were one sound answer beside two the record's own principle (loud-staging) already rules out, and the product thinker answered "why these options? Isn't 1 the obvious choice here?". The rule as written confuses two things: not steering the human (right) and manufacturing alternatives so a question has three of them (wrong). Ruled by the product thinker on 2026-09-20: the rule should not offer nonsense options; if there are no sensible alternatives, do not show them; if there is a single genuine answer, record it with the reason and do not put the question to the product thinker or the technical facilitator at all. Wanted: the GRILL domain reworded to say that a question is asked only where two or more answers are each defensible on the record, that the option set is exactly those answers plus the null answer, and that a decision with one defensible answer is recorded as a decision line naming why no question was asked; the itd-201 draft (every question asked one at a time, in plain language) is where the surface rule lives and should carry the same change.
Grounds
- pursued: an interview asks only real choices and records the rest; a question whose options include answers the record already rules out would show it wrong
Frontmatter
| id | iss-2609202055103741 |
|---|---|
| type | issue |
| lifecycle | resolved |
| severity | minor |
.abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-2609202055103741-the-interview-rule-makes-the-agent-offer.md
open on GitHub ↗ · commit history ↗
mentions5
- iss-2609202058058301A confirmation question must show what is being confirmed inside the question itself; the human cannot confirm what they cannot see. During the peer-listing planning interview on 2026-09-20 the agent listed the rewritten acceptance criteria in prose and then asked, through the interactive question tool, "are these thirteen criteria yours as written?"; the product thinker answered "which criteria? I cannot see them". The prose an agent writes between tool calls does not reliably reach the human; the question tool is the surface they read. The same shape recurred twice earlier in the session (an explanation of options given in prose, the question asked without it). Ruled by the product thinker: show the options, or the text to be confirmed, before asking for confirmation, in the question itself. Wanted: the GRILL domain in .abcd/rules.json and the interview steps on the intent surface page (step 8, walking every criterion; step 3, confirming the press release) say that the material a human is asked to accept, edit or strike is quoted in the question, never referred to; and the itd-201 draft (every question asked one at a time, in plain language) carries the same rule. Sibling of iss-2609202055103741 (no nonsense options): that one is about which options are offered, this one about the human seeing what they answer.
- itd-201Every question abcd's agents put to a human is asked one at a time, in plain language, with options that widen
- itd-2609150819445595A shipped intent's owed fidelity review is listed, so the debt is paid
- itd-2609201916151817One verb takes a READY intent to delivered, and refuses while a decision is open
- itd-2609201925079472An autonomous run paces itself by default, and one flag sets the pace