orca-ask

Orca Ask

This file is a discovery stub, not the usage guide. The full, version-matched Orca ask reference is served by the orca binary itself — kept out of this file on purpose so it can never drift from the binary that will actually run your commands.

Engage orca ask whenever you need a genuine human decision you cannot determine by reading code, config, or tests — not for permission to proceed, and not the same as orca orchestration ask, which is worker-to-coordinator agent messaging inside an orchestration run (see the orchestration skill for that). Triggers include "orca ask", "ask the user", "ask a question and wait for the answer", or needing the user to choose between options, confirm a decision, or supply a non-secret value.

Resolve the CLI for this session

Choose the executable once and reuse it for every later command:

• If the ORCA_CLI_COMMAND environment variable is set, use its value. Orca exports this for managed WSL sessions.
• Otherwise, in a dev checkout whose session exposes ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT, use orca-dev.
• Otherwise, on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, use orca-ide. Never run bare orca there — outside Orca's terminals it normally resolves to the GNOME Orca screen reader (/usr/bin/orca) and starts speech on the user's machine.
• Otherwise, use orca.

Below, ORCA is a placeholder for the executable you resolved. Substitute it before running anything; do not create a shell variable or run ORCA literally. This works the same way in POSIX shells, PowerShell, and cmd.exe.

If the selected executable cannot run, report its exact error and stop. Do not fall through to another executable, which could silently target a different Orca build.

Load the version-matched guide before running Orca commands

ORCA skills get orca-ask

That prints the complete, version-matched guide for the exact binary that will handle your next commands — the register/wait/cancel commands, the register → wait loop, exit codes, the question schema, escape hatches, credential refusal, and answer shapes. Read it first, then run the specific command you need.

There is no safe read-only substitute for ask itself — registering one is a real, user-visible side effect, and an older binary may not have the command at all. Do not fall back to orca orchestration ask; it is a different tool for worker-to-coordinator messaging, not for asking the human user.

Prefer --json. Use the selected executable's --help for commands or flags the guide does not cover. If a command reports that Orca is not running, start it with ORCA open --json and retry. If it fails with runtime_access_denied, your sandbox blocked the connection: re-run it with escalated permissions, and do not run ORCA open or restart Orca. If skills get is unknown, explain that updating Orca restores the guide; use --help for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.