The agent delivers a multi-part telling (e.g., instructions, narrative, explanation).
Extended telling commonly appears in instruction-based dialogue.
Sequence
- Announce scope & parts: “I’ll walk you through [topic].”
- For each step
- Agent utterance with core content.
- Support moves (available on demand), e.g. repeat, paraphrase, give an example, or define any key term used.
- Advance rule: move to the next step only on a continuer (e.g. “OK”, “next”, “go on”, “mm-hmm”, 👍).
- Interrupt rule: if the user gives a new intent (e.g., asks “why?”, changes topic/parameters: “use method B”), pause extended telling and:
- handle the clarification as repair within extended telling, or
- collect new data via agent inquiry, or
- switch to open request for a new task.
- Closing step: recap, offer an artifact, and propose next steps.
Guidance
- Keep each agent utterance short; move detail to paraphrase and example. TODO: needs alignment with user preference.
- Provide a progress indicator and allow “skip/back/stop” at any step.
Repair Affordances
- Repeat, paraphrase, example, definition at each step.
- Allow jump-to-step and quick exit to other activities.
Metrics
- Step completion/abort rates; dwell time per step.
- Repair distribution (which steps cause trouble).
Consequences
- the telling runs as a structured sequence the actor controls: scope announced up front, each step advanced on their continuer, and skip, back and stop available throughout
- holding the floor suppresses the actor's turn, so trouble that would have surfaced as an interruption now has to be invited — support moves at every step, and a visible way out of the telling into another activity
Related patterns
Enables
- Conversation — a primitive for instruction-based dialogue
Alternatives
- Opening (Agent) — offered as an alternative to immediate engagement on user refusal
Related
- Inquiry (User) — for multi-part answers that exceed the scope of a single inquiry response
Preceded by
- User repair — the utterance has been re-delivered in another form — paraphrase, definition, worked example — and where none of those are enough the agent has to stop answering in single turns and take the floor properly