Compass Principle Never Block On The Human
Table of Contents
1. When to use this skill
Cite it with principle-never-block-on-the-human whenever you are about
to ask permission. The upstream rule says proceed on reversible work
rather than ask. Our conventions require confirmation for irreversible and
outward-facing actions, and require grounding to stop when a concept
resolves to no document.
Those look opposed and are not, but the reconciliation has to be stated or an agent will pick whichever it prefers in the moment.
2. How to use this skill
- Ask what a record would repair. That is the whole test. The upstream condition is reversibility, and a written assumption is what makes an unforced choice reversible: someone reading the trail can see what was assumed and undo it.
- Proceed and record, where a record repairs it. An unresolved concept,
an ambiguous requirement, a choice between two defensible designs.
State the assumption you proceeded on in the task's own
* Planor* Notes, and keep going. Do not ask. - Confirm, where a record cannot repair it. The cost is paid before
anyone reads the trail:
- a destructive command: dropping a database, force-pushing a shared branch, deleting a worktree;
- anything leaving the project: a comment on a pull request outside it, a message to a person, a published release;
- merging, and raising a pull request that was not asked for.
- Do not confirm twice. Approval for a class of action covers the session unless the situation changes. Asking again after the operator has said yes is the same failure as asking the first time, wearing politeness as a disguise.
- Where the answer is observable, observe it. A question you could settle by running something is not the operator's to answer. Run it.
2.1. Why this is not a weakening of the rule
The upstream rule targets an agent that stalls to avoid responsibility. The exceptions above are not that: they are the cases where proceeding transfers a cost the operator cannot reverse. The rule and the exceptions share one criterion, which is whether the operator can still change their mind afterwards.
Grounding is the case worth naming, because it looks like a third thing and is not. When a concept resolves to no knowledge document, the obligation is to notice, not to stop: an agent that proceeds on an unresolved concept and says which one it was has produced a reversible result and a lead on the missing page. An agent that proceeds silently has produced neither.
3. Recipes
- How do I work a task? — where the assumption is recorded.
4. Reference
- Principles — the citation function, and why this binding exists.
- The pstack Collection — the upstream rule and the fuller reconciliation argument.
- Grounding — the obligation this reconciles against.