--- title: "Introducing Ask mode: consult an agent before making changes" description: "Meet Ask mode for Netlify Agent Runners: a fast, genuinely read-only way to explore your codebase, query your data, investigate issues, and understand your project before making changes." source: "https://www.netlify.com/blog/agent-runners-ask-mode/" last_updated: "2026-08-18T22:26:44.000Z" --- Netlify Agent Runners have always been good at conquering tasks: you describe what you want, an agent goes and builds it, and you get a Deploy Preview to look at. That’s a great way to work when you already know what you want changed. But a lot of the time, you don’t. You want to understand something first. You may have questions like: _Why is this page slow? Where does authentication actually happen in my app? Is that API key doing what I think it’s doing? What would break if I deleted this?_ Those definitely aren’t build requests, but until now, asking questions like these meant starting a run that was primed to change your code. To make planning and exploring more intuitive (and more fun), we recently launched **Ask mode** for Agent Runners. Here are the details and some tips on how to use it. ## What is it, you ask? When you start an agent run, there’s now a mode selector on the right, next to the microphone icon. - **Build:** the behavior you already know. The agent makes updates to your project and publishes them to a Deploy Preview. - **Ask:** the agent reads, investigates, and answers. In Ask mode, there are no code changes or Deploy Previews… just answers to whatever you want to ask. Ask mode is genuinely read-only, not just “please don’t change anything” read-only. It’s also faster and more token efficient. Ask mode doesn’t spend time building your project or creating a new Deploy Preview. Instead, the agent has everything it needs to give informed answers: your repository, your project context, and read access to your project’s database branch. It’s all the context you’d want an engineer to have before answering a question. Database access is especially interesting. Your data is often the fastest way to answer a question about your app, and Ask mode can query it in read-only mode without any risk of a write. Ask what your users have been up to in natural language, and watch AI fetch the data and report back. Ask mode works with every agent we support: **Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and Google Gemini.** Pick your branch, pick your agent, pick **Ask**, and go. And because it’s just another mode on the same run, you can flip to **Build** the moment an answer turns into a task. Ask, “What’s causing the layout shift on mobile?”, read the explanation, switch to **Build**, and say, “Fix it.” All in the same run session, with the same context, and no re-explaining needed. ## So what do you actually ask it? Ask mode is like having a senior engineer who’s read your entire project and has infinite patience. To get you going, here are some prompts to steal: ### Explore your app & data If you’re using Netlify Database, Ask mode can read your project’s database branch, so questions about your app and questions about your data live in the same conversation. And you can ask in natural language, without handcrafting complex SQL queries. Try questions like: > What users created new nutrition plans in our app today? How many nutrition plans have been created this month? > Show me the queries in this codebase that would get slow at 100× the current size of our database, and tell me how you’d improve them. > Is anything we’re storing in the database something that should probably be encrypted or excluded from logs? ### Landing in an unfamiliar codebase You inherited a project. Someone left. (Maybe they got tired of all your questions.) Now you’re three levels deep in a folder called `utils/`. Here are some questions to try: > Give me a tour of this codebase like I’m joining the team on Monday. What are the main areas, what’s the data flow from request to render, and what are the three files I should read first? > Draw me the lifecycle of a logged-in user, from the moment they hit the site to the moment their session expires. Name the actual files and functions at each step. > What in this repo looks like it was written by a different person—or under a different set of conventions—than the rest of it? > If I had to explain this project’s architecture in a five-minute standup, what would I say… and what would I be glossing over? ### Security This isn’t a replacement for a real security audit. But it’s a great way to get a fast first pass from an agent that can actually inspect your code and environment instead of speculating. > Audit this app for security issues. Focus on authentication, authorization, and anywhere user input reaches a database query or a shell command. Rank what you find by severity. > Look at every serverless function and tell me which ones are publicly reachable without authentication. For each one, tell me what an anonymous caller could do. > Review our CORS, CSP, and cookie settings. What’s more permissive than it needs to be? > Someone on the team is about to open source this repo. What has to be scrubbed first? ### Performance > What are the top three things I could do to make this site faster? Be specific about files and expected impact, and tell me which one has the best effort-to-payoff ratio. > Which pages are rendering on every request that could be static or cached at the edge instead? > Look for N+1 query patterns and anything that fetches in a loop. > Our load time is bad on mobile. Read the code and tell me what’s most likely responsible. ### Reviewing and deciding > I’m thinking about migrating this from `[X]` to `[Y]`. Read the code and tell me honestly how big that job is, what the risks are, and what you’d do first. > What does this codebase assume that isn’t written down anywhere? List the things that might bite a new contributor. > Compare how the checkout flow is implemented against how the docs in `/docs` say it should work. Where have they drifted apart? > What tests are missing? Be specific: what could break in production without a single test failing? ### Just getting unstuck > Explain what this file does, in plain language, to someone who knows JavaScript but not this framework. > I keep seeing this error in the logs: `[paste]`. Where does it come from, and what actually triggers it? > How do I add a new environment variable to this project and use it in a function? Give me the exact steps for _this_ repo, not the generic version. ## Why we’ve found Ask mode so dang helpful The first reason is simple: sometimes you just want an answer, not a pull request. Spinning up a full build run to ask, “Where’s the auth logic?” always felt like driving a forklift through the living room just to pick up a sock. The second is that it’s nice to have a mode that’s explicit about what action will be taken. Reading is safe. Ask mode lets you build confidence in what an agent understands about your project before you let it change anything. Once you’re confident it has the full picture, **Build** mode is one click away. ## Try it Open any project on Netlify, head to the Agent Runner prompt, and switch the dropdown from **Build** to **Ask**. Then just ask. ### Share - [X (fka Twitter)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Ask mode: consult an agent before making changes&url=https://www.netlify.com/blog/agent-runners-ask-mode/) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.netlify.com%2Fblog%2Fagent-runners-ask-mode%2F) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.netlify.com/blog/agent-runners-ask-mode/) - [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Ask mode: consult an agent before making changes+https://www.netlify.com/blog/agent-runners-ask-mode/) ## Keep reading ![](/_astro/91221aaf25205b0bd90884e21907f1acaed12694-3200x1800_ZkaVrQ.webp) News & Announcements August 6, 2026 [ ### Open models are having a moment. 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