AskUserQuestion: add free-form-first or text-only mode

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 27, 2026 by scottgrayson Closed Apr 27, 2026

Problem

When AskUserQuestion presents options, the free-form "Type something" / "Other" input is always the last item in the list. For users who primarily use voice-to-text or prefer typing over navigating menus, this means extra keystrokes (arrow keys) on every single question just to reach the text input.

The current flow is: see options → arrow down past all of them → type response. The desired flow is: see question → immediately start typing.

Proposed solution

One or more of:

  1. freeFormFirst: true parameter — moves the "Other" free-form input to the top of the option list so it's selected by default
  2. textOnly: true parameter — skips the option list entirely and just shows a text prompt (for cases where the caller wants open-ended input but the tool schema requires options)
  3. A global user setting (e.g., in settings.json) to always default the cursor to the free-form input across all AskUserQuestion invocations

Use case

  • Voice-to-text users who want to dictate answers naturally rather than pick from a menu
  • Workflows where the numbered options are suggestions but free-form is the primary expected interaction
  • Skills that ask interview-style questions where open-ended answers are more useful than preset choices

Current workaround

Instruct Claude (via CLAUDE.md) to avoid AskUserQuestion entirely and ask questions as plain text output — but this loses the structured UI, previews, and multi-question features.

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