ask

What ask does on OpenClaw

AI agents call ask to retrieve information from OpenClaw without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.

Why ask is rated Low

The description is minimal and uninformative, making definitive classification difficult. However, 'ask' paired with modes like 'on-miss' and 'always' most naturally maps to a Read operation—querying or prompting for data rather than modifying, executing, or deleting. No destructive, financial, or execute-like actions are evident.

From the tool's definition Tool name 'ask' with description 'off, on-miss, or always' suggests a configuration or mode toggle for querying behavior, likely controlling whether the system prompts or retrieves information.

The rule that runs ask safely

PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and OpenClaw, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For ask, this is the rule to start with:

{
  "version": "1",
  "default": "deny",
  "tools": {
    "ask": {}
  }
}

Questions about ask