Unknowns Discovery

Use this skill when an agent should discover what the user, spec, prompt, or codebase is missing before it commits to a plan, implementation, review, or merge.

The prompt, skill, ticket, screenshot, and context window are the map. The real codebase, product, users, data, constraints, history, and reviewer expectations are the territory. The gap between them is the task's unknowns.

Unknown types

Type	Meaning	Agent move
Known knowns	Explicit facts and constraints in the prompt	Preserve and restate briefly
Known unknowns	Questions already recognized as open	Ask, research, parameterize, or gate
Unknown knowns	Tacit standards the user would recognize only after seeing them	Prototype, mock, compare, or interview
Unknown unknowns	Hidden constraints, missing vocabulary, prior art, traps, or quality ceilings nobody mentioned	Run blindspot passes, inspect references, search code/history, and surface landmines

When to activate

Activate this skill when any of these are true:

• The work is multi-step, ambiguous, unfamiliar, high-risk, or likely to require judgment.
• The user mentions “blindspot pass,” “unknown unknowns,” “what am I missing,” “interview me,” “prototype first,” “implementation notes,” “buy-in doc,” “quiz me,” or similar.
• The user lacks domain vocabulary or does not know what good looks like.
• The task involves codebase history, architecture, data model, permissions, migrations, UX, visual design, product scope, rollout, or reviewer approval.
• The agent is about to start a long-horizon implementation or has already discovered that the plan and codebase disagree.

Do activate for tiny deterministic tasks where exploration would add friction, such as fixing a typo, renaming a variable, or answering a direct question with no meaningful unknowns.