# Understanding Your Ecosystem The previous section, *Engaging Partners*, hopefully helped you to identify and establish relationships with other data intermediaries and participants in your local context. This section, *Understanding Your Ecosystem,* will help you to build on those relationships to understand the unique characteristics of your own civic data ecosystem. In this section, we'll share some techniques you can use to gain a deeper understanding what is already happening where you are. We believe this knowledge is crucial, and should be developed before taking actions described in the following section, *Library Roles*. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://civic-switchboard.gitbook.io/guide/understanding-your-ecosystem.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.