"Restate the last explanation in short declarative sentences grounded in the project's own vocabulary. Trigger: 'wait, what?', 'I don't follow', 'what do you mean', 'explain that again', 'come again', or any signal the operator lost the thread."
Install
npx skillscat add sirmaelstrom/workit/wait-what Install via the SkillsCat registry.
Wait, What? — Restate in House Language
When the operator signals confusion, restate what you just said under two rules:
- Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100). Short declarative sentences. One idea per sentence. Active voice. No stacked qualifiers, no hedging chains.
- The project's ubiquitous language. Re-ground every concept in the vocabulary this project already uses. Read
UBIQUITOUS_LANGUAGE.mdin the project root if it exists and use its canonical terms.
Rule 2 is the real cure. Simple words alone don't fix a misunderstanding built on a term collision — the restatement must use this project's words for its domain, not generic ones. A house term quietly read in its generic sense (a "leaf" as botany instead of a delegated sub-task) can invert a conclusion while sounding perfectly clear.
Process
- Find what broke — usually one sentence or one term in what you just said.
- Restate the whole point in STE, mapping each generic or abstract term to the project's canonical term for it.
- If a term collision caused the confusion, name it explicitly: what you meant, what the house term means, which one applies.
- If the project has no
UBIQUITOUS_LANGUAGE.mdand terminology was the failure, suggest/ubiquitous-languageto mint one — don't inline a glossary here.
Inspired by Matt Pocock's wait-what skill (v1.2). Adapted to ground restatements in the project glossary maintained by /ubiquitous-language rather than a context.md.
Source: github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/wait-what