Ask

Hooman Ask mode in the CLI

Ask mode narrows the tool surface for exploration, research, and answering questions. It is similar to Plan in posture (no shell-driven implementation) but does not open a plan document on disk.

hooman chat --mode ask
hooman exec "How does auth middleware work?" --mode ask

Or /mode → ask in chat / VS Code.

Behavior

Read-oriented: filesystem reads, grep, fetch, web search, skills, MCP discovery
Subagents for read-only exploration (research, code-review, quality-analyst)
No shell, create_directory, or move_file
switch_mode remains available when the answer requires a different posture:
- plan — need a written plan on disk
- design — HTML design artifacts
- agent — implementation or unrestricted edits

Use Ask when you want answers and investigation without kicking off a full planning or coding loop.