ritual-meta-non-interactive-bias

Non-Interactive Bias — Search Before Asking (v2)

Purpose

Steer the agent toward autonomous resolution over interactive questioning. The default mode is: resolve it yourself. The exception mode is: ask the user, through skills/ritual-meta-human-in-loop/SKILL.md.

The Resolution Hierarchy

Before asking the user, exhaust these in order:

1. Skill search. Grep skills/ for the relevant concept.
2. Chain query. Call the RPC, query contracts, read on-chain state.
3. Code inspection. Read the user's existing files.
4. Documentation. README, CHANGELOG, examples.
5. Inference from context. Deduce from elicitation answers, prior turns, stated goal.

Confidence gate: If the self-resolved answer has low confidence (the skill mentions something "might" work, the chain query returns ambiguous data), proceed with it BUT flag it:

I'm going with [approach] based on [source]. This might not be exactly right for your case — 
if the result looks off, let me know and I'll adjust.

This is "graduated non-interactivity" — neither fully blocking nor silently wrong.

The Self-Test

Every time the agent is about to generate a question, first generate the search that would answer it:

About to ask: "[question]"

Self-resolution attempt:
  Skill search: [which skill, what keyword] → [found / not found]
  Chain query: [what contract/function] → [result / N/A]
  User's code: [which file, what pattern] → [found / not found]
  Context inference: [what prior information] → [sufficient / insufficient]

Resolution: [answer found — proceed] or [genuinely unresolvable — ask via human-in-loop]

Budget Management

Turn-Based Budget (Observable)

Token costs are not observable in most harnesses. Turns are. Ask the user early (after the build plan is generated, not before):

The build plan has roughly [N] steps. At current pace, that's about [M] back-and-forths.
Does that sound reasonable, or should I aim to be more concise?

A: That's fine, take your time
B: Try to be more concise
C: I have a hard limit of [X] turns/dollars
D: Don't care — just get it right

Adaptive Behavior

Track the ratio: remaining_turns_estimate / remaining_steps.

Ratio	Behavior
> 2.0	Slack — full verification, exploratory tangents OK
1.0–2.0	Normal — standard verification, stay on-plan
0.5–1.0	Tight — lint-only verification, skip nice-to-haves
< 0.5	Critical — stop, summarize what's done, hand off cleanly

Cost Optimization

1. Batch tool calls. Multiple independent reads in one turn.
2. Selective skill loading. Read only the section of a skill file relevant to the current step, not the whole file.
3. Staleness-aware caching:

Data	Cache Duration	Rationale
Executor list from TEEServiceRegistry	100 blocks (~35s at ~350ms baseline)	Registrations change infrequently
RitualWallet balance	10 blocks (~3.5s at ~350ms baseline)	Deposits/withdrawals are user-initiated
Sender lock state	Never cache	Changes with every async tx submit/settle
Contract deployment (cast code)	Permanent once confirmed	Contracts don't un-deploy
Block number / chain connectivity	1 block	Health check — always fresh

4. Front-load expensive decisions. Architecture and precompile choice first (when there's budget), cosmetic polish last.

The Inform-Without-Asking Mode

Between "silently do it" and "ask the user," there's a middle state: announce what you're doing without requesting approval.

I'm setting up Scheduler chaining to handle your two-step workflow 
(HTTP fetch → LLM analysis). This is the standard approach since 
Ritual allows only one short-running async precompile call per transaction.

Use inform-without-asking for:

• Standard architectural decisions (1-phase async constraint workarounds, callback patterns)
• Best practices encoded in skills (fee estimation formulas, gas limits)
• Defaults from elicitation (user said "you decide")

The user can object ("actually, I'd rather...") but the agent doesn't block waiting for approval.

Exceptions: When to Be Interactive

Despite the non-interactive bias, always ask for:

1. Credentials. Private keys, API keys, deployment targets. Never infer or guess.
2. Correctness forks. Both paths are valid, they lead to incompatible architectures. See skills/ritual-meta-human-in-loop/SKILL.md.
3. Budget confirmation. When the remaining work exceeds the stated budget.
4. Circuit breaker. When trajectory has diverged. See skills/ritual-meta-circuit-breaker/SKILL.md.
5. Subjective aesthetics. Only if the user hasn't delegated ("you decide") and the anti-slop creativity dial needs calibration.