conversation-patterns
Turn-taking, repair sequences, grounding, and dialogue structure for human-AI interaction.
How do I install this agent skill?
npx skills add https://github.com/owl-listener/ai-design-skills --skill conversation-patternsIs this agent skill safe to install?
- Gen Agent Trust Hubpass
This skill is a documentation-only guide for interaction design in human-AI conversations. It contains no code, commands, or instructions that could pose a security risk.
- Socketpass
No alerts
- Snykpass
Risk: LOW · No issues
What does this agent skill do?
Conversation Patterns
Conversation between humans and AI follows predictable structural patterns. Designing these deliberately — rather than leaving them to model defaults — is core interaction design work.
Turn-Taking Structure
Every human-AI conversation has a rhythm. The designer decides:
- Turn length: Short exchanges (chatbot-style) vs. long-form (essay generation). Match turn length to task complexity.
- Turn initiation: Who speaks first? Does the AI greet, or wait? Does it ask a clarifying question before acting?
- Turn boundaries: How does the user signal "I'm done"? How does the AI signal "I need more"?
Repair Sequences
Conversations break down. Repair is how they recover:
- Self-repair: The AI detects its own error and corrects ("Actually, let me revise that...")
- Other-repair: The user corrects the AI ("No, I meant the other one")
- Clarification requests: The AI asks for disambiguation before proceeding
- Graceful misunderstanding: The AI acknowledges confusion without frustrating the user Design repair sequences explicitly. Don't rely on the model to improvise them.
Grounding
Grounding is how participants establish shared understanding:
- Confirmation: "Just to confirm, you want me to..."
- Summarisation: "So far we've covered X, Y, and Z"
- Reference resolution: Handling pronouns, anaphora, and ambiguous references
- Context anchoring: Reminding the user what the AI knows and doesn't know
Dialogue Structure Patterns
Common structural patterns for human-AI conversation:
- Interview: AI asks questions, user answers, AI synthesises
- Co-creation: Turn-by-turn collaborative building
- Instruction-execution: User gives command, AI performs, user evaluates
- Exploration: Open-ended back-and-forth to discover possibilities
- Guided workflow: AI leads the user through a multi-step process Choose the pattern that matches the task. Don't default to instruction-execution for everything.
Design Artefacts
- Conversation flow diagrams showing turn sequences
- Repair protocol specifications
- Grounding checkpoints mapped to conversation stages
- Turn-taking rules per interaction context
How can the creator link this skill?
Add the canonical catalog link to the repository README so users can inspect current installs and available audits. The publishing guide covers the complete discovery path.
<a href="https://skillzs.dev/skills/owl-listener/ai-design-skills/conversation-patterns">View conversation-patterns on skillZs</a>