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GLOSSARY

Disambiguation

Asking a clarifying question, rather than guessing, when a request is genuinely open to more than one reasonable interpretation.

Every system taking free-form requests runs into ambiguity constantly, with only two real strategies: pick the likely interpretation and proceed, or surface the gap and ask. A system that asks isn't less capable — a system that guesses confidently every time is simply hiding its uncertainty instead of surfacing it, and the order ends up wrong exactly as often either way.

A menu has two chicken sandwiches, a classic and a spicy one. Guessing silently picks one and moves on, with a real chance of being wrong. Asking — “we've got two, which would you like” — costs about four seconds and resolves the ambiguity completely before it's ever a kitchen ticket.

The core misconception is assuming a system that asks questions is less confident than one that answers instantly. The opposite mistake is just as real: asking about something that was already perfectly clear is its own failure — good disambiguation is selective, reserved for requests genuinely open to more than one meaning.

HOW DOHOS HANDLES IT

Where a request is genuinely ambiguous, Dohos is built to trigger a short clarifying question rather than proceed on a guess, with how that plays out covered on Orders.

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