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Resolve Before Asking

Makes the agent check its own brain, sources and the web before asking you who someone is.

Source Download skill
Repository
garrytan/gbrain
Stars
31,447
Licence
MIT
Files
1 file

What it does

This skill makes an AI agent exhaust its own memory (a 'brain' of notes and pages), mounted data sources like email or meeting archives, and finally web search before it asks you a question like 'who is this person?'. If it still has to ask, it asks a specific yes/no guess instead of a bare unknown. It also tells ingestion pipelines to fill in a person or company's role at creation time rather than leaving placeholder text.

Great for

  • Developers running the gbrain personal knowledge system who want fewer identity questions from their agent
  • Users importing email, calendar or chat archives who want contacts resolved automatically
  • Teams building agent workflows that should not interrupt people for information already stored

Skip it if

  • Situations where the agent must not guess identities, such as legal, HR or compliance records, since the skill favours inferred hypotheses and web lookups that may be wrong
  • Setups without the gbrain CLI or a populated brain, because most steps depend on those commands and the skill is of little use otherwise

Try asking

  • “When drafting a reply that mentions a name you do not recognise, check the brain first and only ask me if it is still unclear”
  • “Import this month's calendar and make sure every new person page has a role filled in, not a placeholder”
  • “Who is Alex from the Thursday meeting? Look through my notes and emails before asking me”
Step-by-step guide: how to use Resolve Before AskingInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 1 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.

    resolve-before-asking.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip resolve-before-asking.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip resolve-before-asking.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Install the full gbrain plugin so the referenced convention and ask-user skills resolve correctly
  • Keep your brain pages current, since the skill's accuracy depends on the quality of existing timeline and meeting data
  • Review pages written at ingest time, because the skill tells the agent to resolve identities without asking you first

What's inside

  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from garrytan/gbrain under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.