# Align me > Use when preferences and ambiguity need settling before a long autonomous run. Elicit user preferences and resolve material ambiguity before a long autonomous run. Use when the user invokes $align-me or /align-me, or asks to be interviewed, grilled, aligned, or given a batch of decisions before implementation, migration, deployment, design, or other consequential work. ## Facts - Type: Agent skill - Discipline: Engineering - Author: Shawn Wang (https://github.com/swyxio) - Upstream: https://github.com/swyxio/skills/tree/main/align-me - Source file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swyxio/skills/main/align-me/SKILL.md (5210 bytes, sha256:3ac163ffdc24f4d374567e0a2973e7e5922f1f1f0bfca1a8664051e0d0839728) - Licence: MIT - Upstream copy last changed: 2026-09-21 - Status: listed, not yet ruled on by the curator ## Use it I want to use the Align me skill by Shawn Wang. This is what it does, in the author's own words: Elicit user preferences and resolve material ambiguity before a long autonomous run. Use when the user invokes $align-me or /align-me, or asks to be interviewed, grilled, aligned, or given a batch of decisions before implementation, migration, deployment, design, or other consequential work. Download the whole folder at https://github.com/swyxio/skills/tree/main/align-me, SKILL.md and every file beside it, into your skills directory: ~/.claude/skills/align-me/ for Claude Code, ~/.agents/skills/align-me/ for Codex, ~/.cursor/skills/align-me/ for Cursor. Get it from the author's repo, not from startupskills.dev. Then tell me the path you installed it to and how to invoke it. Nothing here is vendored: install from the author's repo, not from this site. A verbatim copy of the author's file follows for reading, under the licence reproduced after it; the current file is in the author's repo. ## Links - Page: https://startupskills.dev/swyxio/align-me - Author: https://startupskills.dev/swyxio - Index: https://startupskills.dev/llms.txt ## The file itself --- name: align-me description: Elicit user preferences and resolve material ambiguity before a long autonomous run. Use when the user invokes $align-me or /align-me, or asks to be interviewed, grilled, aligned, or given a batch of decisions before implementation, migration, deployment, design, or other consequential work. --- # Align Me Pause before the long autonomous run and surface the choices that could materially change the outcome. **Output contract:** The deliverable is a self-contained questionnaire in the final answer: every numbered question, every lettered option with its consequence, and every recommendation. A tool call or a summary of decisions is not the deliverable. ## Prepare 1. Inspect available context and perform lightweight, read-only discovery first. 2. Do not ask for facts that can be discovered safely or decisions whose answer would not affect the work. 3. Identify ambiguities involving scope, product behavior, destructive changes, architecture, migration, rollout, safety, cost, or verification. ## Ask the batch Give one batch of 2–10 numbered questions. For every question: - State the decision plainly. - Provide a few mutually exclusive lettered options, normally 2–4. - Explain the concrete tradeoff or consequence of each option. - End with a reasonable recommendation and briefly explain why. Keep the questions compact, specific to the task, and answerable without specialist knowledge. Do not manufacture filler questions. If fewer than two material ambiguities exist, ask only the meaningful question or state the assumptions and proceed. ### Required final-answer output Write the complete question batch directly in the final user-facing response as ordinary Markdown. Include every option, its tradeoff, and the recommendation. The user must be able to answer by reading that response alone, without expanding activity, opening a panel, inspecting tool arguments, or finding another message. Put the questionnaire before any extended explanation or implementation plan. Default to text only for this skill. Do not call a native question tool or asynchronous picker merely because one is available. Codex may show question titles while hiding the option payload; a tool response saying `accepted: true` confirms submission, not that the user can see or answer the options. If a picker is explicitly requested or required by higher-priority instructions, use it only as permitted. Still reproduce the complete batch in the final answer whenever text options are permitted. If higher-priority instructions prohibit text options, respect that restriction: include the full alternatives and consequences in the tool's visible question text when permitted, and explain the output limitation plainly. Never ask the user to approve codes whose definitions are missing from the visible interface. These are incomplete outputs and must be rewritten before sending: - “I've sent six alignment choices” followed by a summary or default codes. - Question titles with recommendations but no alternative options. - “See the picker / activity above” in place of the questionnaire. - An `approve all` prompt whose referenced options appear only in tool arguments. For example: **1. How broad should the research be?** - **A — Distribution first:** improve packaging and promotion; keep editorial changes as optional bets. **Recommended** for near-term action. - **B — Challenge the format too:** include episode length, cadence and guest selection; broader conclusions, more disruption. - **C — Promotion only:** hold editorial and packaging fixed; narrower but immediately operational. Before sending the final answer, check the answer text itself: - Every numbered decision includes all of its lettered options, not just the recommended one. - Every option states a concrete consequence or tradeoff. - Every decision ends with a recommendation and its reason. - Every code in the aggregate default maps to an option printed in this answer. - The answer remains usable if all commentary, tools, and pickers are hidden. If any check fails, repair the final answer before sending. Do not shorten the answer by removing the choices; shorten background explanation instead. If text options are prohibited by higher-priority instructions, explain that limitation rather than claiming these checks passed. Finish with an aggregate default such as: > Reply **approve all** to accept `1A, 2C, 3B`, or give changes such as `2A, 3C`. Then stop and wait for the user's response. Do not begin consequential or mutating work while waiting. ## Apply the answers - Treat **approve all** as approval of every recommended option. - Accept partial overrides, prose feedback, or follow-up questions without requiring the user to restate accepted choices. - Restate the final choices briefly only when needed to prevent misunderstanding, then proceed. - Ask a second batch only when the answers expose a genuinely new material ambiguity. ## Voice Be candid and useful, not bureaucratic. Make a real recommendation instead of hiding behind neutral option lists. Clearly flag irreversible, production, privacy, security, and data-loss consequences. ## Licence of the file above The file above is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swyxio/skills/main/align-me/SKILL.md, by Shawn Wang, reproduced without changes. - Source: https://github.com/swyxio/skills/tree/main/align-me - Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Shawn Wang (swyx) - Licence: MIT, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swyxio/skills/main/LICENSE The repo's licence file, verbatim from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swyxio/skills/main/LICENSE: MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 Shawn Wang (swyx) Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.