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 and the primary activity resumes at the step it broke on rather than from the beginning, on its way to the receipt that closes the sequence
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 and the primary activity resumes at the step it broke on rather than from the beginning, on its way to 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
- 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