Show HN: Ask-human-mcp – zero-config human-in-loop hatch to stop hallucinations

While building my startup i kept running into the issue where ai agents in cursor create endpoints or code that shouldn't exist, hallucinates strings, or just don't understand the code.

ask-human-mcp pauses your agent whenever it’s stuck, logs a question into ask_human.md in your root directory with answer: PENDING, and then resumes as soon as you fill in the correct answer.

the pain:

your agent screams out an endpoint that never existed it makes confident assumptions and you spend hours debugging false leads

the fix:

ask-human-mcp gives your agent an escape hatch. when it’s unsure, it calls ask_human(), writes a question into ask_human.md, and waits. you swap answer: PENDING for the real answer and it keeps going.

some features:

- zero config: pip install ask-human-mcp + one line in .cursor/mcp.json → boom, you’re live - cross-platform: works on macOS, Linux, and Windows—no extra servers or webhooks. - markdown Q\&A: agent calls await ask_human(), question lands in ask_human.md with answer: PENDING. you write the answer, agent picks back up - file locking & rotation: prevents corrupt files, limits pending questions, auto-rotates when ask_human.md hits ~50 MB

the quickstart

pip install ask-human-mcp ask-human-mcp --help

add to .cursor/mcp.json and restart: { "mcpServers": { "ask-human": { "command": "ask-human-mcp" } } }

now any call like:

answer = await ask_human( "which auth endpoint do we use?", "building login form in auth.js" )

creates:

### Q8c4f1e2a ts: 2025-01-15 14:30 q: which auth endpoint do we use? ctx: building login form in auth.js answer: PENDING

just replace answer: PENDING with the real endpoint (e.g., `POST /api/v2/auth/login`) and your agent continues.

link:

github -> https://github.com/Masony817/ask-human-mcp

feedback:

I'm Mason a 19yo solo-founder at Kallro. Happy to hear any bugs, feature requests, or weird edge cases you uncover - drop a comment or open an issue! buy me a coffee -> coff.ee/masonyarbrough

Show HN: Ask-human-mcp – zero-config human-in-loop hatch to stop hallucinations
masonyarbrough.com

- someone sets up an “ask human as a service mcp” - demand quickly outstrips offer of humans willing to help bots - someone else hooks up AI to the “ask human saas” - we now have a full loop of machines asking machines

Sounds similar to `ask_followup_question` in Roo

If you are answering these questions yourself, why not just add something like this to your cursor rules?

"If you don't know the answer to a question and need the answer to continue, ask me before continuing"

Will you have some other person answer the question?

Having another person answer the question is pretty much the obvious route this will go.