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Temporarily hold the pending action, explain the active frontier, then prompt the user to resume work.
Trigger And Scope
Treat only an entire trimmed ? message and an explicit $what invocation as the checkpoint trigger. Do not intercept an ordinary question that merely contains ?.
When the user instead asks to re-orient around an active task after not understanding the current update, answer in the same checkpoint style without taking ownership of ordinary prose that simply includes a question mark.
Explain The Frontier
State the last confirmed point, current workflow and step, changed artifacts, why the state matters, and the pending next action. Preserve project terms and read the nearest CONTEXT.md when it exists.
Do not advance the workflow, delegate the pending action, or invent a new route while explaining the frontier. Keep the pending action paused at its current boundary until the user explicitly resumes it.
Prompt Continuation
When request_user_input is callable, invoke it with Continue (recommended), Adjust next action, and Stop. Otherwise, render the same localized choices in concise prose without requesting a mode switch. End every active-work explanation with that continuation prompt. Execute the pending action only after the user chooses Continue.
Continue resumes the pending next action as scoped. Adjust next action changes only the immediate next step unless the user's adjustment invalidates the current workflow. Stop ends the active run cleanly and leaves the frontier paused.
No Active Work
When no active or resumable task frontier exists, say that no resumable frontier exists and ask what task to orient around. Do not pretend there is pending work, and do not fabricate continuation controls for a task that is not active.