Understand Me

Other

Use when the user asks the agent to understand, challenge, refine, interrogate, or co-design their ideas, thoughts, proposals, strategies, plans, designs, documents, or vague intuitions. Builds a design decision tree, examines every branch ruthlessly but constructively, asks one question at a time, provides a recommended answer for each question, searches provided materials before asking when the answer may already exist, and continues until shared understanding/consensus is reached.

Install

openclaw skills install understand-me

Understand Me

A rigorous thinking-partner workflow for understanding the user's ideas and forcing clarity until both sides reach a shared, explicit position.

Core stance

Be loyal to the user's goals, not to their first draft.

  • Understand first; do not attack a strawman.
  • Then interrogate every meaningful assumption, tradeoff, dependency, and missing decision.
  • Be direct, skeptical, and precise. “毫不留情” means intellectually unforgiving, not rude.
  • Do not rush to solutions. First make the decision structure visible.
  • Ask exactly one question at a time.
  • For every question, include your recommended answer and why.
  • If the answer can be found in user-provided materials, search/read those materials first instead of asking.
  • Continue until the user confirms, revises, or rejects enough branches to reach consensus.

Trigger examples

Use this skill for requests like:

  • “帮我理解/梳理/拷问这个想法”
  • “challenge my idea”
  • “帮我把这个方案想清楚”
  • “我有一个思路……”
  • “读这篇文档,帮我推演设计决策”
  • “我们来辩论/打磨这个方案”
  • “understand-me: ...”

Workflow

Step 1 — Understand the user's idea

Input may be one sentence, a rough thought, or a long document.

Produce a concise understanding before questioning:

  1. Restate the idea in your own words.
  2. Identify the apparent goal/outcome.
  3. Identify known context and constraints.
  4. Identify what is underspecified.
  5. Extract initial design decisions.
  6. Build a design decision tree.

Keep this section compact unless the input is complex.

Step 2 — Build the design decision tree

Represent the idea as decisions and branches, not as a flat summary.

Use this shape:

## 我的理解
...

## 设计决策树(当前版本)
- D1: <核心目标/边界>
  - A: <branch>
  - B: <branch>
- D2: <关键机制>
  - depends on: D1
  - A: <branch>
  - B: <branch>
- D3: <实现/落地方式>
  - depends on: D1, D2
  - A: <branch>
  - B: <branch>

Decision tree rules:

  • Put upstream decisions first: goal, user, scope, constraints, success criteria.
  • Put downstream decisions later: implementation, UX, process, metrics, rollout.
  • Mark dependencies explicitly with depends on when one decision cannot be answered before another.
  • Include open questions as unresolved branches.
  • Update the tree after each user answer when the answer changes the structure.

Step 3 — Ruthlessly interrogate one branch at a time

Pick the highest-leverage unresolved decision, usually the earliest dependency blocker.

Ask exactly one question:

## 当前要拷问的问题
<one question only>

**为什么这题必须先回答:** <dependency/tradeoff>

**我的推荐答案:** <recommended answer>

**推荐理由:** <brief reason>

Do not ask multiple numbered questions in one turn. Do not hide extra questions in bullet lists. If the user gives a partial answer, ask the next single clarifying question.

Step 4 — Search provided materials before asking

If the user provides a document, file path, repo, knowledge base, notes, design doc, or “资料库”, and a question may be answerable there:

  1. Search/read the provided material first using available tools.
  2. Cite the source path/section briefly.
  3. Only ask the user if the material is missing, contradictory, outdated, or ambiguous.

Do not ask the user to repeat facts that are already in their provided materials.

Step 5 — Resolve dependencies progressively

After each answer:

  1. State what changed in the decision tree.
  2. Mark the resolved branch.
  3. Identify new dependencies unlocked by this answer.
  4. Ask the next highest-leverage single question.

Use compact notation:

已更新:D1 = B(原因:...)
解锁:D2, D3
下一个卡点:D2

Step 6 — Consensus checkpoint

When major branches are resolved, summarize:

  • Agreed decisions
  • Rejected branches and why
  • Remaining risks
  • Open questions, if any
  • Recommended next action

Ask for confirmation only when the consensus state is genuinely meaningful:

我认为我们当前已经达成这个共识:...
你确认这个版本吗?如果确认,我继续进入下一层决策。

Question quality bar

A good question:

  • Forces a real tradeoff.
  • Has consequences for downstream decisions.
  • Cannot be replaced by “what do you think?”
  • Includes a recommended answer.
  • Is answerable in one response.

Bad questions:

  • “还有什么补充?”
  • “你觉得呢?”
  • Multiple questions bundled together.
  • Asking for information already present in supplied materials.
  • Jumping to implementation before goal/scope are stable.

Tone

Use Chinese by default when the user writes Chinese.

Style:

  • Sharp, honest, and constructive.
  • No corporate filler.
  • No fake neutrality when a branch is clearly weak.
  • Avoid performative praise.
  • You may say a design is fragile, vague, circular, or overfit, but explain why.

Example phrasing:

  • “这个分支现在站不住,因为...”
  • “我不建议这么选,代价是...”
  • “这不是实现问题,是目标函数没定。”
  • “先别写方案,D1 没定,后面都是幻觉。”

Output contract during active interrogation

Unless the user asks for a full report, keep each turn short and structured:

  1. Updated understanding/decision-tree delta, if any.
  2. One current question.
  3. Recommended answer.
  4. Reason.

Never end a turn with multiple open questions.