github / github/copilot-cli

Ask clarifying questions in chat instead of forms

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Shell
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Description

Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

Allow agents to ask clarification questions in normal chat instead of forms, without discouraging questions or increasing agent autonomy.

Proposed solution

Add a Forms / Chat presentation preference, independent of the askUser enablement setting.
In chat mode, the agent should display clarification questions inline, wait for my reply through the regular chat input, and continue afterward. Follow-up questions should use the same conversational flow.
This should change only the presentation, preserving when and why agents ask for clarification. Forms could remain the default, with chat as an opt-in preference.

Example prompts or workflows

No response

Additional context

I previously disabled askUser to avoid the forms interface, but that does not reflect my intended preference. I still want agents to ask useful questions rather than make assumptions. I simply prefer asking and answering through the normal conversation, because the ask_user forms are limited compared to the regular chat interface.

Example for why it is not convenient to work with ask_user/forms:
Image

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing the existing askUser enablement and Forms / Chat presentation behavior in the CLI. Done means chat mode keeps clarification prompts enabled, displays questions inline, accepts replies through regular chat input, and preserves the existing timing and follow-up flow without changing the default Forms behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
shell
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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