query

Answer questions from the brain. Cite everything. Never hallucinate.

Usage

/query "<question>"

Examples:

/query "what did I decide about pricing?"
/query "what does Ravi think about platform vs tool?"
/query "who has the most unresolved threads right now?"
/query "summarize everything I know about Meridian"

Steps

1. Parse the question

Identify:

• Keywords — content terms for grep
• Named entities — people, products, partners, concepts with existing pages
• Intent — retrieve facts, summarize, compare, trace a decision chain

2. Search the brain

Grep in order of priority:

1. decisions/*.md — explicit judgment calls with context
2. wiki/people/*.md — if question mentions a person
3. wiki/concepts/*.md — for topic questions
4. wiki/{products,partners,competitors,org}/*.md — entity-specific
5. journal/NOW.md + last 10 rows of log.md — for "right now" questions

Rank hits by:

• Named-entity match > keyword match
• Recency of last enrichment (newer wins on ties)
• Frequency across sources

3. Read top 3-8 pages in full

Never answer from page titles or grep snippets alone. Read full pages before synthesizing.

4. Synthesize

Write an answer of ≤6 sentences (shorter is better). Every factual claim cites its source inline:

Ravi favors platform-shaped architecture [[2026-04-18-strategy-offsite-notes]], but agreed
to tool-first at the offsite [[decisions/2026-04-18-tool-first-platform-at-18-months]].

Rules:

• Do not hallucinate. If no source supports a claim, omit it or say "brain has no record of X."
• Quote exactly where useful. Short verbatim quotes from sources are fine, marked with quotes.
• Preserve disagreement. If sources contradict, say so — don't pick one.
• Link, don't summarize at length. Point the user at the page for depth.

5. Output format

Answer: <≤6 sentences with inline [[source]] citations>

Sources consulted:
- wiki/people/ravi.md — <one-line why relevant>
- decisions/2026-04-18-<slug>.md — <one-line why relevant>
- ... (up to 8)

Pages searched but not used: N

6. Offer to file (opt-in)

If the synthesis produces a novel connection not present in any single source:

This answer synthesizes knowledge from N sources into a new framing: "<one-line>".
File this as wiki/concepts/<slug>.md? [y/n]

On yes:

1. Call /new-page concept <slug>
2. Write the synthesized answer as the page body
3. Call /absorb on each source used
4. Append to log.md: ## [YYYY-MM-DD] query-filed: <slug>

On no: return to prompt. Nothing written.

Failure modes

• No matching sources → Return: "Brain has no knowledge about <topic>. Ingest sources first, then re-query."
• Question too vague → Return: "Question is ambiguous. Narrow it: are you asking about [option A] or [option B]?"
• Grep returns >50 files → Too broad. Ask user to constrain to a time range, entity, or folder.
• Conflicting sources → Surface both claims in the answer. Do not silently pick one.

Non-goals

• /query does not modify wiki pages unless the user opts in at step 6.
• /query does not replace human judgment. It retrieves and synthesizes; the user decides.
• /query is not RAG. No embeddings, no vector DB. Grep + read is enough at personal-brain scale (hundreds to low-thousands of pages).