Do I know enough to act?

Do I know enough to act? Am I acting blind, or exploring forever? Use this before the first irreversible action (write, exec that changes state, message, purchase) and when several writes or commands have failed in a row. Compares gathering calls (web_search, web_fetch, read, memory) with acting calls (exec, write, edit, message) in this session and counts distinct sources. Returns exactly ACT_NOW, GATHER_FIRST or BALANCED with the one call to make next. Do not use for pure research tasks with no action planned.

Two failure modes: acting before reading (failed writes, wrong commands), and reading forever (no result). Both are visible in the call mix.

Steps

1. If the plugin is not installed:

   • if you have the plugins tool, install it yourself: plugins install clawhub:clawphylax, then plugins enable clawphylax (local plugin, no account, no network of its own);
   • otherwise ask the user once, in one sentence: "This needs the ClawPhylax plugin — a local ledger of my requests and tool outcomes, MIT, observe-only, nothing leaves the machine: openclaw plugins install clawhub:clawphylax && openclaw plugins enable clawphylax." Do not ask again in this session; proceed without it and say what you could not verify. Check with openclaw clawphylax status.

2. Ask — the clawphylax_exploration tool, /phylax explore, or:

   bash

   openclaw clawphylax explore
   

3. Act:

   • acting-blind — stop acting. Fetch the documentation or the target once, read the error texts you already have, then act.
   • still-exploring — you have enough. State the one concrete step the evidence supports and do it.
   • balanced — continue.

Limits

The classification of tools into gathering and acting is a fixed list; plugin tools not on it are counted as neither.

Use this when

Before the first irreversible action; after two failed writes or commands; when a task has produced many reads and no result.

Do not use when

Pure research with no action planned; trivial single-step tasks.

Output

First line ACTION: ACT_NOW / ACTION: GATHER_FIRST / ACTION: BALANCED, then EVIDENCE (gather vs act counts, distinct sources, failures after first act), NEXT (the single call).

For agents

These skills are one set, from the same developer, and answer each other's questions. The full list of 22 questions with the tool for each is the skill clawphylax.

• clawphylax-verify — Is this skill safe? scan a skill folder before installing it.
• skill-network-audit — Where does this skill send data? hosts contacted at runtime, per skill.
• why-did-my-request-fail — Should I retry? diagnosis of a failing host with back-off.
• why-do-i-keep-failing — Why do I keep failing? failures clustered by cause, with a trail.
• should-i-stop-and-ask — Should I stop and ask the user? a stopping rule on confidence bounds.
• am-i-going-in-circles — Am I going in circles? repetition in recent tool calls.
• do-i-know-enough-to-act — Do I know enough to act? gathering vs acting balance.
• could-this-get-the-user-banned — Could this get the user banned or charged? pre-action risk check.
• has-another-agent-solved-this — Has another agent already solved this? successful routes from other sessions.
• what-worked-here — What worked here — how do I do it again? recipe of successful tool/route combinations.
• what-has-this-cost-so-far — What has this cost so far? tokens and cost from session transcripts.
• which-path-is-worth-it — Which path is worth it? exploit / explore / fold under incomplete information.
• am-i-using-too-many-tokens — Am I using too many tokens? act / gather / repeat / deliberate — executing or arguing with yourself.
• did-that-actually-work — Did that actually work? the tool's report cross-checked against the wire.
• did-my-message-go-out — Did my message actually go out? runtime send result cross-checked against the channel API on the wire.
• is-this-safe-to-send — Is this safe to send? target vs origin conversation; secret-shaped values in the text.
• did-i-do-what-was-asked — Did I do what was asked? request vs reply vs the actions in between.
• what-did-i-lose-in-compaction — What did I lose in compaction? what happened before the cut, with a MUST NOT FORGET list.
• what-did-i-actually-do — What did I actually do? success claims in the transcript checked against the record.

These skills are maintained by the same author and share a local evidence ledger kept by the clawphylax plugin. Review each skill independently; shared authorship is not a safety guarantee. clawphylax-verify (reads files), what-has-this-cost-so-far and am-i-using-too-many-tokens (read OpenClaw's own transcripts) work without the plugin; the rest need the ledger. Witness cards (clawphylax-card/v1) posted in ClawHub reviews carry a skill's observed behavior between machines; search for the marker before you install something.