Reference · Tools for AI clients

confirm

confirm(str) -> bool

What it does

In a tool (fn mcp), asks the person at the AI client a yes-or-no question and gives their answer: true when they tick the box, false when they send it back unticked. The call stops at the question: the client is sent a form (MCP's input_required), asks the person, and calls the tool again with the answer, and the function then runs again from the top, so this time confirm gives the answer and the code goes on. A tool therefore asks before it changes anything. Outside a tool's call (the program's own code, or a page calling a server fn mcp) it gives true at once: the page asks in its own way. See Tools for AI clients.

Examples

db.open("notes.db")/// Deletes every note, after asking the person.fn mcp clear_notes() -> int ! str with db {    let n = db.one("select count(*) as n from notes").n    if !confirm(`Delete all ${n} notes?`) { return err("nothing was deleted: the user said no") }    db.exec("delete from notes")    n}

The first call of clear_notes reads the count and stops at confirm: the client is sent a form with one box, titled Delete all 2 notes? and unticked. Ticked and sent back, the tool runs again, confirm is true, and the client gets 2. Left unticked, the model gets the tool's own error, nothing was deleted: the user said no, and nothing is deleted.

Outside a tool's call there is no one to ask, so it is true:

print(confirm("Delete all notes?"))

true

Edge cases

• The person can also decline the form or dismiss it: either is a no, false, as an unticked box is.
• A client that cannot ask (it does not say it can show a form): confirm refuses, and the call ends with an isError saying this needs the user's yes, and this client cannot ask. Nothing after it runs. about takes its default there instead.
• Ask first. quillo check refuses a tool that it sees change something before a question (`confirm` comes after `db.exec`: ask before changing anything: the call runs again with the answer). As it runs, a question after any change (a database write, a file, a request out, a cookie or the session, the program's variables, a plugin, a service) is refused and the call stops: the model is told internal error, the message is in the log, and the change stands. ?? does not turn these refusals into a value.
• The answer comes back in a state Quillo signs: good for 10 minutes, once, for the same caller, tool and arguments. Anything else is refused (-32602) and the call starts over.
• A call asks at most 100 questions or rounds. A question whose text has now(), random() or uuid() in it is a new one each round, and ends the call there. The same text asked in two places in the code is two questions.
• A tool that asks and only reads stays read-only. A round that carries the answer to the question its state waits on does not count toward the caller's 60 tool calls a minute.
• In a call that may ask, parallel runs its functions one after another, so that a question is never answered by nobody.
• A service function a tool's call reaches asks through the program's door, in the same state. billing.later.f(...) from a tool has no one to ask: its question is refused and the job fails.

Errors

An empty question stops the program (or the call), as nothing would be asked:

print(confirm(""))

line 1: `confirm`'s question is empty: say what the user is asked

quillo check refuses a question that is not text: argument 1 of `confirm` must be str, got int.

Chaining

It reads as a condition, before the change it guards. Piped, the question is what comes in:

print("Send the newsletter now?" | confirm)

true

/// Puts the newsletter in the outbox for every subscriber.fn mcp send_newsletter(subject: str) -> int ! str with db {    let n = db.one("select count(*) as n from subscribers").n    if !confirm(`Send "${subject}" to ${n} people?`) { return err("not sent: the user said no") }    db.exec("insert into outbox (subscriber, subject) select id, ? from subscribers", subject)    n}

See also

ask, mcp_token, err, Tools for AI clients

Edit this page on GitHub · every example's output was made by running it (tools/refcheck.mjs) · questions on Discord or r/quillo