ask-gate

# /ask-gate **Ask-Gate (AGP)** governs the moment *just before* a handler-facing question. Asking is cheap to type and expensive to waste — a question the agent could have answered itself is a nag, and a high-stakes question asked with the wrong options or framing burns the one interaction that mattered. AGP makes AskUserQuestion a deliberate, quality-gated reflex instead of a casual reach: triage whether to ask at all, ask routine questions directly after a quick checklist, and escalate the questions that actually matter through `/insight-critique` then `/insight-assess` before surfacing them. AGP is invoked two ways: **automatically**, as the standard reflex before any AskUserQuestion (it can fire inside COP's surface step, inside NSP's surface step, or standalone); or **directly**, as `/ask-gate` to quality-gate a specific pending question. > **Structured execution spec:** [`protocol.yon`](protocol.yon). Read it for the canonical rules and step sequence; this file is explanation. The two must stay in sync — if you edit one, update the other and refresh the `@STAMP` date. ## The protocol — three steps ### 1. Triage (anti-nag) A question is the handler's to answer **only if it cannot be resolved from the request, the code, or sensible defaults.** If it can be resolved, resolve it, state the choice you made, and **do not ask**. Asking a resolvable question is the single most common nag failure — this gate exists to kill it. This mirrors COP's step-1 anti-nag triage; if ...