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Enso

Questions and dialogs

What it shows

Section titled “What it shows”

Sometimes pi needs an answer from you before it can go on. Enso shows the question as a card in the chat, and your answer goes back to pi. There are two kinds:

  • A questionnaire, when pi calls the ask_user tool. It holds one or more questions, each with options, and you answer all of them at once.
  • pi’s own prompts: a choice, a yes or no, or a line of text. The permission engine asks this way before an edit, and so does /login.

While a question is waiting, pi waits too. The status bar says a question is waiting.

How to open it

Section titled “How to open it”
  • There is nothing to open. The card appears at the end of the chat when pi asks. It also appears in any other tab that has the same thread open, and whichever answers first wins.

What it looks like

Section titled “What it looks like”

An ask_user questionnaire

  1. One tab per question, named by its header. A tab gets a check once it is answered. A single-choice question moves you to the next tab when you choose.
  2. Other opens a field for your own answer. Here it adds a third test to the two offered.
  3. Submit answers sends every answer together. It stays disabled until each question has one.

A permission prompt before an edit

  1. pi is asking, then what kind of question it is.
  2. The options, exactly as the permission engine offered them. The text above them is the engine’s own: the tool, and what it would touch.
  3. Cancel — decline the question.

What to look for

Section titled “What to look for”

Read the detail before you answer. A permission prompt shows the file and the change, or the command, that pi wants to run. The options that end in “for this session” allow that tool or pattern for the rest of the thread without asking again; they do not change the mode. “No, provide reason” asks for a line pi reads with the refusal.

In the thread above, pi asks both before it edits anything, and each question is its own card with its own answer. While a card waits, the status bar reads running ask_user or running edit beside a question is waiting: the tool call is open until you answer.

If you open a thread and find a card already waiting, that question was asked while you were away. It is still live, and answering it now lets pi continue.

What it doesn’t do

Section titled “What it doesn’t do”
  • A question lives only while the thread runs. A thread opened from its file, with nothing running, has no questions to answer.
  • A question can end without you: when pi is stopped, or when the extension that asked gives up after its own timeout.
  • The questionnaire has no notes field. The only free text is Other.
  • A choice outside the options offered is refused by the server. The browser cannot answer with an option pi never offered.

Go deeper

Section titled “Go deeper”