Elicitation Assistants

Alloy needs assistant features because developers may struggle to express intent records directly. The assistant should feel like a thoughtful senior engineer interviewing the developer, not like a form generator.

Each mode approaches the same goal from a different angle, and each produces or sharpens an engineering intent record.

The six modes

• The "Why is this here?" Assistant — inspects code structures and asks targeted questions about why a boundary exists.
• The "What Would Make You Angry?" Assistant — surfaces intent by asking which changes the developer would reject outright.
• The "Scar Tissue" Assistant — asks about past failures the developer is trying not to repeat.
• The Technology-Choice Assistant — starts from a stated technology choice and extracts the deeper capability it protects.
• The Principle-Expansion Assistant — starts from a known principle and asks for its local meaning in this codebase.
• The Intent Contradiction Assistant — notices when accepted intent conflicts with code, gates, or other intent.

Return to Intent Capture for the broader picture, including Codebase Archaeology.

Source: Product Brief §11 (Intent Elicitation Features).