Spend Human Attention on Ambiguity

AGENT-SPEND-HUMAN-ATTENTION-ON-AMBIGUITY

Agent Workflow Agent Context Reviewability Public API

Summary

Ask for human judgment where product behavior, API compatibility, naming, or security posture is still ambiguous. Resolving direction early prevents large speculative diffs.

Rule

Spend human attention on ambiguity.

Why

Agents can spend a lot of effort executing through an unresolved decision. Product behavior, public API compatibility, security posture, naming taste, and repo structure often need human judgment before implementation, not after a large speculative diff.

Helps

Uses human attention where it changes direction and lets agents handle the well-bounded work after that.

Limits

Do not ask humans to decide details the repo already answers. Research and summarize enough context that the ambiguity is real and the choice is meaningful.

Agent Instruction

Spend human attention on ambiguity because agents can spend a lot of effort executing through an
unresolved decision.

Mechanisms

Supported by focused decision prompts, option tradeoffs, prototypes, small spike branches, and review notes that identify the exact ambiguity boundary.