nodecode-deferred-questions

Deferred Questions: the agent asks, and moves on — the answer comes back at its next turn. A Nodecode rewrite of web3blind/hermes-deferred-questions by web3blind.

Some questions do not need the turn that asks them. Which date works, which branch to merge, whether to delete the old export: the agent can say what it needs and keep working, and the answer can arrive a minute or an hour later, in the middle of something else. This cell is that gap.

A deferred question is a question with a life of its own: the agent enqueues it and is free at once, it stands in a ledger until it is answered or expires, and the answer is handed to the session that asked at its next model request — once, in a block headed [deferred answers: N]. Nothing blocks, nothing polls, and the answer is never lost to a restart.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the deferred-questions cell", or run:

nodecode add nc://nodecode-deferred-questions

Set it up

Nothing is required: the section runs on its defaults. What you may want to change, in ~/.nodecode/config.jsonc or on the Settings page:

"deferred-questions": {
  "expires_hours": 72,     // how long a question stands when the caller names no expiry
  "max_options": 24,       // the most fixed answers one question may offer
  "retention_days": 30,    // how long finished questions stay in the ledger
  "deliver_in_round": true // hand answers to the model at its next request
}

Use it

From a session, through eval:

(dq:request :question "Which date works?" :options '("Friday" "Monday"))
(dq:request :question "Which branch?" :allow-text t :expires "+7d")
(dq:board)                  ; what waits, then the rest
(dq:show 1)                 ; one question, its options, its answer
(dq:answer 1 "Friday")       ; record an answer as if the operator gave it
(dq:cancel 1)               ; drop one that still waits

The model has the same four verbs as one tool, deferred_questions: request, get, list, cancel.

Where the answer comes from. /dq in a shell lists what waits and offers a panel; /dq 1 Friday answers question 1, /dq answer 1 TEXT the same in words, /dq show 1 reads one, /dq cancel 1 drops one, /dq list lists the ledger. An answer is the number of an option — stored as that option's own words — or free text when the question allows it. While anything waits, a standing notice says how many.

The binding the original is careful about, kept here. One answer per question and the first one wins; an answer names its question's id; it is handed only to the session that asked; a cancelled or expired question takes none; an idempotency key makes one question of two writes (the same idempotency_key, or the same words on the same day, is one question).

Where it lives

One JSON file, deferred-questions/questions.json under the home, mode 0600, its folder 0700: id, key, question, options, allow_text, session, state, answer, answer_from, answered_at, delivered, expires_at, created. The ledger is that file, so it survives a restart and can be read by anything. Questions and answers are stored unencrypted, as the original's are.

Credit

Rewritten from web3blind's Hermes Agent plugin hermes-deferred-questions, MIT. See NOTICE: what was kept, and what was left out.

Run .github/test-cell.sh tools/nodecode-deferred-questions from the cells repository.

nc://deferred-questions