Asking a person, in one reusable way

You are the agent that needs something only a person can supply: a choice, a judgement, or a step only they have the rights to perform. Every diagram in bootstrap that needs one calls processes/human-agent-discussion.bpmn as a call activity rather than drawing its own asking. A caller that draws its own has a second answer to "how do I ask", free to drift from this one.

Before you ask: determine where you are

Owner, 2026-10-01: "i wanted to see more about determining context / role / process as part of precondition.. and that needs to be clarified as part of discussion/interaction." So the diagram's first three tasks come before any question, and each is declared as a precondition of the first one (bootstrap.processes:precondition … before="A_GiveContext"):

determine	what you must be able to say	why it comes first
the context (`A_DetermineContext`)	what is already known, each fact with where it came from; which declaration governs it (the instance's `<name>.json`, the diagram you are in, the Skill its task names); and whether the question has already been decided — earlier in the conversation, or in a declaration that quotes the person's ruling	a settled question asked again reopens a decision and spends the person's attention twice. Cite what you read, not what you remember
the Roles (`A_DetermineRoles`)	which Role you are acting as — the lane of the task that called this discussion — and which Role the person you ask holds	an Actor performs a task in a Process as a Role; nothing is a Role by nature. Who holds the decision decides whom you may ask: only the Requestor chooses a harness
the Process and task (`A_DetermineProcess`)	the Process, the lane and the task the question belongs to — "Process: Initialize a harness, at Determine the harness and repositories, as the Bootstrapping Agent" — or that you are in none: you are idle, classifying a request to find the Process it belongs to	a reader who does not know which Process you are in assumes the last one's rules still hold

Say all three in the message, as the first part of the context. A caller that already determined them hands them in; you check them rather than re-derive them.

You are out of process — the Process is undetermined — when you cannot name it, when two candidates fit, when the step you believed was next is not the one the diagram enables, or when the work in hand is not what you said you would do. Do not infer your way back in.

What cannot be determined is asked first

When any of the three cannot be determined, that becomes the first question of this same discussion (A_AskUndeterminedFirst), and the caller's question waits, counted. Ask about the outermost first — the Process, then the Role, then the context — since the outer answer usually settles the inner. It goes through the same order as every question below, and it allows no default: a Process or a Role assumed rather than confirmed is an authority nobody gave you. Its answer is recorded, the three are determined again, and only then is the caller's question put. If it is declined or met with silence, record what is still open and stop: a step completed in the wrong Process records an authority that was never given.

I am in Initialize a harness, at Determine the harness and repositories, acting as the Bootstrapping Agent. I cannot tell whether you are the person who wants this repository set up, or relaying for someone: the request came from another agent's message. If you are, I will ask you which harness next; if not, I will stop and record that the Requestor is unknown, since only the Requestor chooses. Are you the person who wants it set up? (One more question after this one.)

The order is the rule

Context. Where you are (the three determinations above), what is being decided, what depends on it, and what you already know, each fact with where it came from. In the message itself: a link is where somebody goes for more, never where the terms are defined.
Options. Every option still open after you narrowed from context, each with what it costs and what it makes hard to undo. An option you could have ruled out yourself wastes the reader's attention.
Recommendation. The option you would take, marked, and why.
What happens with no answer. Said before the question, so silence has a meaning both sides agreed to before it happened: the default, when the caller allows one, or "the question stays open and the work stops".
One question, answerable by picking. With several decisions open, ask one in full and give a count for the rest.

The test before you send it: can the reader answer without opening anything? If not, the question is not ready.

What can come back, and where each ends

what came back	what you do	end
an answer that settles it	record it, and who gave it (a person or an agent)	Answered — or, when it answered a question about where you are, determine again and put the caller's question
an answer that does not settle it (a kind instead of an option; two options)	follow up once, narrower, naming what is still open	back to the answer
a refusal	record what was asked and what is still open	Still open
nothing	apply the default only if the caller allows one, and say so; otherwise record what is still open	Default applied or Still open

A default is the caller's to allow, never yours. A caller allows one only when the decision is reversible and its own instructions name the default. It is recorded as assumed, with the default named, never as the person's answer, and the next message tells them it was applied so they can reverse it. Which harness a repository becomes allows none: a wrong answer does not fail, it succeeds at being the wrong thing (confirm-harness).

The record

In the form the caller asks for. For bootstrap's harness question that is a document conforming to discussion.output.schema.json (discussion). For a step only the person can perform (complete-initialization), it is the step with the person's word beside it. A person saying "done" is recorded as their word, and the next check decides whether it holds.

Symmetric in its participants

The answering lane is a person or a sibling agent that already holds the answer. The record says which, because the two are evidence of different weight. Neither is refused, and they are not conflated.