Ask a Human Expert

Instant Expert sends a paid ask from the user's account to real professionals: executives, operators and domain experts it finds from a description, or one specific person the user names. Each ask is a question for a written or voice answer, or a 15 to 60 minute call. The person is paid only if they answer or book, and the user is charged only then. This skill teaches the agent to drive Instant Expert's tools for knowledge work, meaning judgment and first-hand experience from specific people, not errands or physical tasks. It is adapted from the official skill.

The flow has five steps. First, pick the mode: live tools if the session already has them, otherwise a free 24-hour test sandbox. Second, choose who to ask. Third, draft the ask. Fourth, preview, approve and send. Fifth, collect the answers.

Use it when the answer needs a practitioner's experience rather than a web page, such as how long a SOC 2 Type II took someone, or how claims teams at mid-size insurers triage. Use it for customer discovery, user interviews, expert input, or a first conversation with a kind of buyer. Use it when the user names someone to reach, by name and company, LinkedIn URL or email, and when the user asks whether anyone answered an earlier ask.

Do not use it to find personal contact details, to get confidential or material non-public information, for physical tasks, or to message people the user has not approved.

To choose people, the agent follows one of four paths. A named person with a LinkedIn URL or email skips searching and goes straight to queuing the request. A name and company go through import_people, then get_search, and if there is no match the user is asked for a LinkedIn URL or email. A kind of person goes through search_people once with the whole request, including how many people and any exclusions. A bare goal goes through plan_outreach with a description, lets the user pick an audience, then runs its search query.

Tools that start work return a job_id, which the agent polls with get_job, waiting the suggested interval, until the job succeeds or fails. Every new operation gets its own idempotency_key.

To draft the ask, queue_requests takes the question in the user's words (up to 500 characters, with the price left out because the invitation states it), a request_type of text_voice_note or call with a duration of 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, plus offer_cents and max_spend_cents. Then prepare_request_order returns a preview with recipients, message, pricing summary, total cap, card, payment mode and terms. Only after the user explicitly approves that preview does the agent call send_requests; "draft it" is not approval in live mode.

Answers come back through list_requests and get_request, which return the reply text, a transcript or the booked time. Real people take hours to days, so the agent checks back later instead of polling in a loop.

Pricing: offer_cents is what each person receives, with a $5 minimum, and the Instant Expert fee is added on top, so a $40 offer costs the buyer $50. A call is charged when the person books it, a written or voice answer when it is completed, and nothing if nobody answers. max_spend_cents caps the total, fee included. As a starting point the skill suggests $50 for 15 minutes, rising to about $100 for very senior people.

The agent drives the Instant Expert MCP tools, including search_people, import_people, plan_outreach, queue_requests, prepare_request_order, send_requests, list_requests, get_request and get_job. When they are not connected, it calls the free test server with curl. Test mode has about 300 fictional people at fictional companies, records invitations instead of sending them, answers within seconds, and uses a Stripe test card, so nothing reaches a real person or moves real money. The user is told once that results are simulated, and simulate_response can force outcomes such as books, replies, declines or no response.

Going live needs the user's own account, so the agent asks before changing their agent configuration, then connects the server at https://instant.expert/mcp (Streamable HTTP, OAuth sign-in, no API key):

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user instant-expert https://instant.expert/mcp

Founders, product managers and researchers who need first-hand answers from people who have done the work, without cold-emailing strangers themselves. It suits anyone running customer discovery or expert interviews who wants cost caps, a preview and an explicit approval step before money moves.