deepseek-harness/packages/ui/tool-ask-user

@deepseek-ai/dsh-tool-ask-user

Model-facing ask_user_question tool over ctx.userInteraction. It lets the model ask the human a concise question when it needs confirmation, a choice, or missing information before continuing.

Tool

ask_user_question accepts:

• questions — required non-empty array of question objects.
• id — required stable id on each question, echoed in the answer.
• question — required question text for each question.
• header — optional short heading.
• options — optional choices with label and description. If recommending a choice, put it first and append (Recommended) to that label.
• multi_select — whether that question may return more than one selected option.

The tool calls ctx.userInteraction.ask() and returns JSON text shaped as { "answers": [{ "id": "...", "selected": ["..."], "custom": "..." }] }. selected contains option labels; custom is present only for a free-form answer and overrides selected choices.

Role

This is the consumer package for the user-interaction seam. It does not render UI and does not know how input is collected; it only translates model arguments into AskUserQuestionRequest and returns the human answer to the agent loop.

Model Experience

Tool schema

What the model sees: The model sees the generated ask_user_question schema, including question ids, prompts, headings, options, and multi-select flags.

Token effect: Fixed schema cost on every request where the tool is visible.

Tool-call history and result

What the model sees: The model's full questions remain in the assistant tool-call arguments. After the human answers, the next step sees compact JSON in the exact shape {"answers":[{"id":"<id>","selected":["<label>"],"custom":"<text>"}]}; custom is omitted when unused and selected can contain zero, one, or several labels. UI interaction while the call is pending is not model context.

Token effect: Arguments and answer JSON are data-dependent retained tokens; there is no token cost while waiting for the human.

Known Limitations and Deferred Work

• A pending question blocks the tool call until the human answers — the tool declares no timeout-policy budget; cancellation rides the turn's exec.signal only.
• Answers return as JSON text — the seam's structured AskUserQuestionAnswer is serialized into the tool result rather than carried as typed content blocks.