# Resolve Before Asking

Gate on identity questions to the user.

- Repository: https://github.com/garrytan/gbrain (31427 stars)
- Category: Engineering
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add garrytan/gbrain --skill resolve-before-asking -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add garrytan/gbrain --skill resolve-before-asking -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add garrytan/gbrain --skill resolve-before-asking -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add garrytan/gbrain --skill resolve-before-asking -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add garrytan/gbrain`

## Description

Gate on identity questions to the user. Before any "who is X?" (or role / relationship question) reaches the user, exhaust the brain's lookup chain: think → search + page read → mounted sources → timeline/graph → web. If escalation survives the chain, ask WITH a hypothesis, never a bare unknown. Also owns the no-placeholders-at-ingest rule: pages created during bulk ingestion get their relationship/role resolved immediately.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Resolve Before Asking, Exhaust the Brain Before Bothering the User

> **Convention:** see [conventions/brain-first.md](../conventions/brain-first.md)
> for the base lookup chain (search → query → get_page → external APIs). This
> skill extends that chain one hop further, to the human boundary: asking the
> user is the LAST resort, after the brain AND external escalation, not a
> shortcut around them.

> **Convention:** see [_brain-filing-rules.md](../_brain-filing-rules.md), > pages touched by the ingest-resolution section file by primary subject
> (`people/`, `companies/`).

## Purpose

**Never ask the user "who is X?" when the answer already exists in the brain.**

The memory answers before the human is bothered, that is the product promise.
This skill defines the lookup chain that runs before any entity-identification
question is sent to the user, and the escalation format when asking really is
justified.

## The Bug This Kills

The pattern: the agent encounters an entity with a rich brain page, timeline
entries, meeting history, an imported message archive, and instead of reading
them, asks the user "who is X?". This is lazy escalation. It spends the user's
attention on questions the system can answer itself.

Examples of the bug (anonymized):

- **alice-example**, her brain page already carried a role line ("Chief of
  Staff at acme-example") and a long meeting history → the agent still asked.
- **charlie-example**, a thick imported email thread whose subject lines all
  pointed at one shared project → the agent still asked.

## When This Fires

This is a harness-routing convention, not a mechanical guarantee: route here
whenever ANY of these are true, 

The rest: https://github.com/garrytan/gbrain/blob/HEAD/plugin-variants/gbrain-coding/skills/resolve-before-asking/SKILL.md