Development record
Questions still break abcd's asking limits after several rounds of fixes, on two accounts on 2026-10-23. (1) In a repository abcd manages, on another account, an agent bundled four separate issues into one question without going through the abcd:question-drafter agent, and the question check refused 21 parts at once: headers that were not role chips, no Decide later option, no Now: or Change later: lines, and question text that did not quote the thing being decided; the status line meanwhile read 'waiting on the product thinker'. (2) In abcd's own checkout, a question was refused because its text did not end with the question, and it also ran 25 rows against the 24-row limit (header and frame 8, question text 7, options 10), which the check reports but does not refuse, so it would have been shown and a narrow window might cut it; at the same time an abcd:question-drafter run spent 9 minutes 32 seconds and 174.2k tokens recounting over-limit tabs with a hand-written rows script. Earlier rounds include iss-2610071538055431, iss-2610100626327722, iss-2610161734179773 and the open iss-2610090816296964.
Questions still break abcd's asking limits after several rounds of fixes, on two accounts on 2026-10-23. (1) In a repository abcd manages, on another account, an agent bundled four separate issues into one question without going through the abcd:question-drafter agent, and the question check refused 21 parts at once: headers that were not role chips, no Decide later option, no Now: or Change later: lines, and question text that did not quote the thing being decided; the status line meanwhile read 'waiting on the product thinker'. (2) In abcd's own checkout, a question was refused because its text did not end with the question, and it also ran 25 rows against the 24-row limit (header and frame 8, question text 7, options 10), which the check reports but does not refuse, so it would have been shown and a narrow window might cut it; at the same time an abcd:question-drafter run spent 9 minutes 32 seconds and 174.2k tokens recounting over-limit tabs with a hand-written rows script. Earlier rounds include iss-2610071538055431, iss-2610100626327722, iss-2610161734179773 and the open iss-2610090816296964.
Grounds
- pursued: we expect a command that checks a draft question and returns every fault and the exact row count to end the repeated refusals, because the drafter and agents would stop counting rows by hand and see every fault in one pass; it is shown wrong if a question drafted through the command is still refused for layout or rows, or if a drafter run still writes its own counting script
Frontmatter
| id | iss-2610230745597968 |
|---|---|
| type | issue |
| lifecycle | open |
| severity | minor |
.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-2610230745597968-questions-still-break-abcd-s-asking.md
open on GitHub ↗ · commit history ↗
References1
- itd-2610230756259215Every question abcd asks passes its check before the person sees itrelated
mentions6
- iss-2610071538055431Question guard's 24-row limit counts the option lines, but the asking rule reads as a limit on the question text
- iss-2610090816296964When abcd asks the person to choose, the question keeps running past the host's question box: a question over 24 rows at 80 columns was refused in a live session on the 0.13.2 plugin, and the agent cut its options down to a few words each to get it through. The product thinker, reading the refused draft, saw that its long text added nothing: a paragraph before the options described each option again, while the options' own labels and descriptions were already perfectly clear. The problem was repetition, not too little room, so the fix is a rule against it rather than a second channel for the overflow; a separate text file for the full options was considered and dropped on the product thinker's ruling of 2026-10-09.
- iss-2610100626327722When an abcd question is refused for another fault, the refusal lists the question's rows overrun among the parts to fix ('fix each and ask again'), although the rows limit alone never refuses (the question gate's rowsOnly, iss-2610070637562567). The person and the agent read it as a cause of the refusal, and the agent cuts a question the gate would have shown; seen twice in one interview on 2026-10-10.
- iss-2610161734179773During an interview the orchestrating agent tells the person about the question drafter's internal round trips: the drafter refused a draft for running one row over the 24-row limit, and the agent narrated that refusal, its reasoning, and the redraft it was resuming. The person does not need any of it. Only the finished question should reach them; a refused or redrafted question is the agent's own business.
- iss-2610301855200679A question that breaks abcd's asking rules still reaches the person as an error, after the product thinker asked several times for it to stop (2026-10-30, and before in iss-2610230745597968). In one planning interview the abcd:question-drafter returned a refusal for 3 of 10 drafts because the quoted material and its options did not fit the 24-row limit for one decision; the calling agent then put over-limit questions to the person itself, and once skipped the drafter altogether, so the question check blocked the question in front of the person (no Decide later option, 28 rows). Three gaps let this through: the drafter may give up and hand back a refusal instead of working until its draft passes; it counts rows by its own reckoning rather than through abcd's check; and nothing makes the calling agent ask only a question that passed, so the hook's refusal is the first check the question meets, and the person sees it. The product thinker's proposal: a sub-agent keeps working on the question until it conforms, and only then is it put to the person.
- spc-2610301917245442Every question abcd asks passes its check before the person sees it