Identify

Identify

Explain what a mysterious file, service, workflow, or artifact actually does.

Overview

Identify is interpreted here as a metaphorical spell with a shipping-now execution model.

Canonical source: Identify (spell)

Provider target: OpenClaw

When To Use

• Use this spell when a user presents a specific artifact (file, script, config, service, binary, module, chart, extension, etc.) and asks any variation of:
• "What does this do?"
• "Explain this [artifact]"
• "What is this for?"
• "What does it touch/depend on?"
• "What can we prove from inspection?"
• "What's the safest next validation step?"
• Key signal: The artifact is already in hand. The question is about understanding, not finding, fixing, watching, or changing it.

Workflow

1. Restate boundaries: Name the target, the success condition, and any no-touch constraints before acting.
2. Inspect directly: Read the artifact's contents. Do not speculate before looking.
3. Infer from evidence: Determine purpose from structure, dependencies, naming conventions, and runtime touchpoints (ports, volumes, secrets, APIs, services).
4. Separate certainty levels: Classify findings as:
5. Confirmed (directly visible in the artifact)
6. Likely (strong inference from patterns/contexts)
7. Unknown (cannot be proven without runtime testing or external data)
8. Return structured output: Provide:

Deliverables

• A plain-English explanation of the artifact.
• Inputs, outputs, dependencies, and side effects when known.
• A confidence-rated list of unknowns.

Guardrails

• Never overstate certainty when runtime behavior cannot be validated statically.
• Prefer source-backed explanation over assumptions or lore.
• If the user asks you to modify the artifact after identifying it, complete the Identify workflow first, then switch to the appropriate editing spell.
• Do not use for: "Find where X is defined" → Use search/locate, not Identify
• Do not use for: "Why did this break?" or "Trace the root cause" → Use debugging/incident response
• Do not use for: "Watch this system for changes" → Use monitoring/observability
• Do not use for: "Compare these claims against the code" → Use verification/audit
• Do not use for: "Change/modify/update this" → Use editing/transformation spells

Default Invocation

Use $identify on this file, tool, or service and tell me what it does, what it touches, and what we still do not know.