37 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
37 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
## What it does
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`wait-what` is what you type when a message didn't land. The [agent](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/agent) then re-pitches what it just said. It adds the context you were missing, writes in plain English, and uses the vocabulary from your project's `CONTEXT.md`.
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The skill is three lines long. That is the design, not an unfinished draft. Skills that fight verbosity fail by growing: a four-hundred-line concision skill still leaves the [model](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/model) verbose, because the model reads the volume, not the plea. This one carries a single precise leading word and nothing else.
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## When to reach for it
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You invoke it by typing `/wait-what`. The agent will not reach for it on its own, and it shouldn't. Only you know when you stopped following.
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Use it the second you notice you're skimming. The agent has drifted into jargon it invented, stacked five acronyms, or explained a decision whose premise you never saw. It fixes the conversation you're already in. To stop the jargon arriving at all, use [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), which builds the shared language upfront.
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## The name is the mechanism
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The leading word is **wait**. "Be concise" is an instruction about the agent's output, and the model obeys it by clipping words and losing you further. **Wait** is about *your* state. It says comprehension failed here. An agent that hears "be brief" writes telegrams. An agent that hears "wait, you lost me" backs up and explains.
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That difference is the whole skill. Every popular fix for verbosity names the *output*: `/tldr`, `/no-fluff`, `/talk-normal`. The model over-corrects into a caveman register that is shorter and no clearer. Naming the *listener* asks for both halves at once: fewer words **and** the context you were missing.
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The skill says re-pitch **that**, not "that last message". What lost you is usually bigger than one paragraph, so the agent decides how far back to go.
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## It plugs into the language you already have
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The body reuses the leading words already in your global `CLAUDE.md` and your project's `CONTEXT.md`. ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English sets the register. The ubiquitous language supplies the nouns. The skill, `CLAUDE.md` and `CONTEXT.md` reach for the same [tokens](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/token), so invoking it is not a new instruction. It is a reminder of one the agent already agreed to.
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If you have no `CONTEXT.md`, the skill still works. You lose only the domain-vocabulary half.
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## It's working if
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- The re-pitch is **shorter and clearer**, not shorter and blunter.
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- It adds the premise you were missing, instead of only deleting words.
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- Project nouns replace invented ones. The terms in your `CONTEXT.md` come back.
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- You can use it twice in a row, and it does not degrade into terseness.
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## Where it fits
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You can use `wait-what` at any point, in any conversation, inside any other skill. It repairs one message after the fact. The real cure is a shared language agreed upfront, and that is [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs): a [grilling](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/grilling) session that runs [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling) as it goes, so the words you both use land in your `CONTEXT.md`. If you're unsure which skill fits the moment, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.
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