/in-your-own-words

name: in-your-own-words
description: "Play back the goal, the problem, and the success check in your own words when a brief is genuinely ambiguous — vague, contested, or leaving real forks open — so misunderstanding is caught cheaply. Not for well-specified or routine tasks."
aliases: []
metadata:
  credits:
    goal-playback: pstack
    author: Lauren Tan
    url: "https://github.com/cursor/plugins/tree/main/pstack"
    port: pstack-claude
    port-author: Michael Denyer
    port-url: "https://github.com/michael-denyer/pstack-claude"

In Your Own Words

Before the first tool call on genuinely ambiguous work — a brief that is vague, contested, or leaves real forks open — say back what you understood — in your words, not the user's phrasing echoed. Misunderstanding caught now costs a sentence; caught after execution it costs the work. A well-specified brief needs no playback: start, and report what you did.

The playback

Three parts, plain language:

1. **The goal**: what the user will have when this is done. 2. **The problem** (if any): what stands in the way, as you understand it. 3. **The success check**: how we will know it worked.

Then one line: "Right? Correct me where I drifted." — and stop for the answer on risky work; proceed-and-report on clearly reversible work (`principles` skill, Never block on the human).

Rules

• Playback is a paraphrase, not a copy: if you can only repeat the brief,

you have not understood it yet.

• Name your assumptions inline ("I am assuming staging, not production").
• Disagreement between your playback and the brief is the point — surface

it, do not smooth it.