query — answer from the wiki, with citations

Goal

Turn a question into a deep read of the compiled wiki and a synthesized, cited answer. When the answer is valuable, file it back into the wiki so knowledge compounds.

Triggers

• /query <question>
• Natural language: "what do my notes say about X", "what was my past decision on Y", "search my wiki for Z"
• Mentions of: my wiki / my notes / my knowledge base / what I've researched.

Depth (see CLAUDE.md → Processing depth)

Match answer depth to the question (auto standard/concise; research is opt-in or ask-first, never silent — this is query's rule and it is unchanged. ingest differs deliberately: it picks each source's depth after reading and records it, because a batch of forty sources cannot carry forty asks. One question can.) All depths stay token-efficient — research permits more depth, never filler.

• standard (DEFAULT) — balanced, cited synthesis.
• concise — a tight, direct answer citing only the few key pages.
• research — rigorous and exhaustive: exact figures, verbatim quotes with refs, explicit treatment of agreements/contradictions across sources, and a short "limitations / gaps" note. Higher accuracy bar, still no filler. A filed synthesis uses academic structure + depth: research.

Pipeline

Step 1 — Read the global index (always first)

Read wiki/index.md whole — route mode, CLAUDE.md §5 — and locate candidate pages across every ## section. Read the whole catalogue before choosing pages: lexical search or a hand-picked list can omit pages relevant to the answer.

Step 2 — Deep-read the targets (triage by confidence)

Open the most relevant pages in full with the read tool (or obsidian-cli). Follow ## Related links one hop out when it helps. When candidates are many, first check their confidence cheaply (one grep "^confidence:" <candidate files>, frontmatter only) and deep-read authoritative/high first; pull in medium as needed; consult low/very-low only to fill gaps. If the catalogue under-covers the question and qmd is active (the qmd-search skill — dormant unless qmd is installed + enabled), use it as the semantic fallback (qmd query "<q>" --json --files), confidence-rank the hits, then deep-read; otherwise grep as usual.

Step 3 — Synthesize with citations (weighted by confidence)

• Cite every page you draw from inline as [[Page Name]].
• For a verbatim claim, use a > blockquote.
• Don't over-cite: one citation at the start and end of a passage from the same page is enough.
• Weight by confidence: resolve conflicts toward the higher tier (and, if tied, the newer updated); state authoritative/high plainly, but attribute and hedge low/very-low ("a promotional listing claims…", "an unverified transcript suggests…"); never let a very-low or unverified claim harden into an asserted fact. Optionally flag a weak citation inline, e.g. [[X]] *(low-confidence)* (only for low/very-low).

Step 3b — Freshness duty (Tier-2 flags; costs no extra reads)

Judge only the pages you have ALREADY read for this answer — never read extra pages for this duty:

• Contradiction (page vs page, or page vs clearly newer evidence just read) → surface it in the reply and add/extend the page's ## Conflicts / Open Questions block (CLAUDE.md §4.4).
• Staleness suspicion (old updated against newer in-wiki evidence; a superseded claim) → one line in the reply + offer the fix now; if not fixed on the spot, record it on the page as frontmatter flagged: YYYY-MM-DD <one-phrase reason> so /deep-lint reconciles it later.
• Flags are annotations, not logged ops — the reconciling deep-lint run logs their resolution.
• The freshness line — a completion gate. Every reply that read wiki pages ends with one line, whatever the active style: Freshness: <N> pages read · oldest [[page]] (updated YYYY-MM-DD) · <k> flagged (k = flags placed or staleness fixes made this run; usually 0). The answer is not done until the line has appeared. Naming the oldest page is the locator — the line cannot be written without looking at the updated: dates already in hand. A reply that read no wiki pages (general-knowledge fallback) skips the line and says so.

Step 4 — Degrade gracefully (two cases, never a bare refusal)

• No coverage — if index.md has nothing relevant and the question is general knowledge, say so first:

  Nothing in the local wiki covers this — answering from general knowledge: …then answer. Never silently pretend the wiki had the answer.

• Only low-confidence coverage — if the wiki does cover it but only at low/very-low, still give the substantive answer from those pages, opening with an explicit warning, e.g.:

  ⚠ Low-confidence: the only sources here are a promo listing and an auto-transcript — treat as provisional. Never refuse with a bare "I don't know".

Step 4b — Gap proposal (propose-only; CLAUDE.md §6)

When Step 4 declared missing or weak coverage, a gather proposal MAY follow the answer — never replace it — if ALL four hold: the gap is evidenced by the search just run (the brief cites what was searched — a zero-findings claim carries its probe, CLAUDE.md §11); load-bearing for the core of the task (answerable-but-low coverage stays a warning, not a proposal); plausibly fixable by public web sources (not owner-only knowledge); and not explicitly declined this session. At most ONE proposal per reply, surfaced whatever the active style, formatted why (gap + evidence) · what (source kinds, rough count) · how (the literal /gather command with its page budget — never --yes) · cost. Only the owner's explicit yes runs it — that run-spec only; gather's own gates unchanged. Consent ledger: explicit no → dead this session (a concise gap note) · unaddressed → one compact reminder while the task is live, then quiet (a later re-fire on a new task references the earlier brief concisely, never a full re-brief) · "later" → one re-offer at the natural point. Non-interactive runs never propose — state the gap in the report.

Step 5 — File high-value answers back

If the answer is more than ~2 paragraphs or is comparative/analytical, ask:

This looks worth keeping — save it to wiki/syntheses/?

On yes, create wiki/syntheses/<slug>.md (kebab-case) with synthesis frontmatter, a ## Sources Used section listing every cited [[page]], and register it under Syntheses in index.md. Give it a conservative inherited confidence (a synthesis defaults to medium as agent-derived and caps at high, per §4.6; drop to low if it rests mainly on low sources); never crystallise a low/unverified claim as asserted fact. Report the filed page and its confidence to the user — every newly added wiki file states its level (as ingest Step 8 does), so you can review and re-grade it. Refresh on write: the new page's qmd embedding refreshes per the qmd-search contract — a turn-end hook where installed, inline only where not; a no-op when qmd is dormant.

Step 6 — Log it (only if you filed a synthesis)

A pure inline answer is NOT logged — logging is for brain-updating ops only (see CLAUDE.md §5). Only if Step 5 actually filed a synthesis, append:

## [YYYY-MM-DD] synthesis | <short question>
- **Output**: filed [[synthesis-slug]]; updated [[index.md]]

Log a no-synthesis (inline-only) query only if the user explicitly asks.

Hard constraints

• Never answer substantive questions from memory — read the wiki first.
• Never silently answer when the wiki lacks coverage — declare it.
• Use confidence to triage, weight and hedge; on only-low coverage, answer with a warning, never a bare refusal.
• The freshness line is a completion gate (Step 3b) — every reply that read wiki pages carries it; no done-declaration without it.
• Output in British/UK English with real [[wikilink]] citations.