Clarifying questions

Garden · not yet reviewed Established: widely used

Asking the AI to question you about the task before it starts, so gaps in your request surface early and you make the decisions the AI would otherwise guess at.

Also called: ask me questions first · interview me · reverse prompting

Connections

Understand first

Ideas this one builds on.

• Prompting (garden)

Related

Often used together or easily confused.

• Steering (garden)
• Productive friction (garden)
• Deep research (garden)

Skills that use it

• /frame-the-problem (garden)

Blueprints that practise it

• Build a style guide so AI drafts sound like you (garden)
• Ask AI to play devil's advocate on a team decision (garden)
• Hire and onboard an AI copilot for one piece of work (garden)
• Let AI ask before it plans (garden)
• Teach your AI assistant your team's jargon, one confirmed term at a time (garden)
• Write a one-page build plan before you ask AI to make an app (garden)

Resources that teach it

• AI Style Guides: How to Help AI Write Like You (garden)
• How to Use Claude Code as a Second Brain (garden)
• Wharton Generative AI Labs Prompt Library (garden)
• Build Beautiful Slides with Claude Code in 12 Minutes (12 Formats + 3 Templates) (garden)

Competency

• Frame the outcome
• Describe the task

Find clarifying questions on the commons map ↗

You may know it from

• librarianship the reference interview Librarians ask what you actually need before searching, because the first question is rarely the real one.
• business analysis requirements gathering

In plain words

When a request is vague, AI tends to fill the gaps silently and hand you something polished that solves a slightly different problem. A simple fix is to say: “Before you start, ask me up to five questions you need answered to do this well. Ask them one at a time.”

The questions show you what you hadn’t decided yet: who the audience is, how long it should be, what is off limits, when it is really due. Answering them often clarifies your own thinking more than the final output does.

This works best when you answer in your own words and push back on questions that don’t matter.

Example

A team lead asks for an offsite agenda and adds “ask me questions first”. The AI asks about group size, goals, budget, and whether there are tensions to handle. That last question makes her realise the real goal is repairing trust between two teams, which changes the whole plan.

How it connects

• A twist on prompting where the AI asks and you answer.
• An early form of steering: you set direction before any work happens.
• A light dose of productive friction that makes you think first.

Try it

On your next real task, add “Ask me three questions before you start, one at a time.” Guess which question it will ask first.

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Read this card as plain Markdown: /concepts/con-clarifying-questions.md. Know a parallel from your own field, or a product that implements this? Add it.