---
name: feedback_interview_ai_read_docs
description: Before guessing or probing an external AI/CLI's command syntax or capabilities, READ its bundled docs and/or interview the model itself — probing wastes tokens and misleads.
metadata:
  type: feedback
---

When you need to understand an external AI's or CLI tool's **command syntax or
capabilities**, do NOT blindly guess flags or run slow trial-and-error probes.
First **read its own bundled documentation**, and/or **interview the model
itself** (ask it to read its own docs and explain). The authoritative source is
almost always already on disk.

**Why:** repeated timed probing is expensive (each Grok run is 80-300s), gives
ambiguous signals, and is the exact "blindly guessing or probing" pattern Mike
has flagged. The docs answer the question directly and for free.

**Concrete example (the lesson):** the long-standing `ask-grok.sh xsearch`
"no result (stopReason=)" failure was root-caused not by probing but by reading
**`~/.grok/docs/user-guide/` (esp. `14-headless-mode.md`, `11-custom-models.md`,
`05-configuration.md`) and `~/.grok/README.md`**. They revealed: `web_search`
runs a SEPARATE multi-agent model (`grok-4.20-multi-agent`), so the wrapper's
blanket `--no-subagents` strangled it; the documented headless JSON schema is
`{text,stopReason,sessionId,requestId}`; and `--yolo` is the documented
tool-run posture. One confirmatory run, not a dozen.

**How to apply:**
- For the Grok CLI: read `~/.grok/docs/user-guide/*.md` and `~/.grok/README.md`
  (and `grok inspect` / `grok models` / `grok <cmd> --help` for live truth)
  before changing [[feedback_windows_quote_stripping]]-style wrapper internals.
- For any vendor CLI/API: locate its shipped docs/`--help`/OpenAPI first; treat
  one targeted run as *confirmation* of a doc-derived hypothesis, not as the
  discovery method.
- Interviewing the model (its text path) is valid even when a tool path is
  broken — asking Grok doesn't require its web_search to work.