The agent handles its own trouble in understanding: ambiguity, low confidence, conflicting entities, or missing slots.
- A → U: Signal trouble concisely and offer a candidate understanding or targeted question (disambiguate, confirm, or request a missing value).
- U: Provide clarification or choose an option.
- A: Acknowledge and resume the primary activity at the right step.
- U (Optional): Sequence closer (see sequence completion).
When to use
- Confidence below threshold; overlapping constraints (“size” could mean volume or dimensions).
- Multiple entity candidates, out-of-range values, or required data missing.
Guidance
- Show interpreted intent + parameters and let the user edit.
- If a specific value is required, transition to information capture*.
Repair affordances
- One-tap buttons for options; “Assume default” (with preview); “See how I understood this.”
Metrics
Repair resolution rate on first attempt; turns-to-repair; wrong-action rate after repair; drop-off during repair.
Consequences
- the agent's reading of the request is on the surface where the actor can correct it; where the trouble turns out to be one specific missing value rather than a wrong interpretation, the exchange narrows to asking for it
- understanding is restored with the activity mid-flight, so completion has to be designed to resume at the step that broke rather than from the beginning — and still end in the receipt that closes the sequence
Appears in
The encounter
- Designing for trouble, step 1 — Show the agent's reading for correction
Related patterns
Precedes
- Inquiry (Agent) — the agent's reading of the request is on the surface where the actor can correct it; where the trouble turns out to be one specific missing value rather than a wrong interpretation, the exchange narrows to asking for it
- Sequence completion — understanding is restored with the activity mid-flight, so completion has to be designed to resume at the step that broke rather than from the beginning — and still end in the receipt that closes the sequence
Enables
- Conversation — the agent repairs its own misunderstanding — ambiguity, low confidence, missing detail
Complements
- Capability & scope — out-of-scope requests are a form of scope repair
Related to
- Handoff — repair keeps the current holder going; handoff gives up on the current holder without giving up on the work
- Inline interface — inline confirmation and correction checkpoints
- Opening (User) — for disambiguating ambiguous or overlapping user openings