Brain ask (the librarian)

Chats evaporate — the brain doesn't. This skill answers questions from the human's OWN notes, shows where every claim comes from, and is honest about what the brain does not know.

Conventions: <vault> = the vault path from the Brain vault: line in your global rules — or, if there is no such line, the folder this session was started in, when that folder holds a CLAUDE.md naming a vault mode. A shared company vault has no global line on purpose (its skills travel inside it), so falling back to ~/Brain there would write into somebody's private vault. Only when neither exists does ~/Brain apply. python3 = your working python command (on most Windows machines py -3; the global rules name it).

Steps

1. Orient, then search wide: Read <vault>/index.md first — the root signpost names the mode, the vault language, the folder map and the search tool, and unless this session started inside the vault you have none of that. (No index.md? Read <vault>/CLAUDE.md instead.) Then skim <vault>/Home.md (the living dashboard often frames the answer) and run python3 <vault>/.tools/search.py <terms> with 2–3 term variants (synonyms, the person's name, the project slug). Read ONLY the hits — never the whole vault.
2. Answer from the notes, in the vault language, citing every source note as a [[link]] so they can click into it in Obsidian. The notes' content outranks your general knowledge — if the vault and your training data disagree about the human's life, the vault wins.
3. Decisions are special: if the question touches a past decision, quote the decision record (40-decisions/) including its reasoning — that's exactly what the append-only log is for. A record marked Superseded by … is history: answer from the one that superseded it and name both.
4. Two hits that contradict each other? Do not pick one. Give both, with their dates, say which is newer and where each comes from — a moved date usually leaves the old one standing somewhere. Then offer to capture the correction. Answering confidently from one of two conflicting notes is the worst thing this skill can do: it sounds certain and sends the person to last month's appointment. A vault that contradicts itself is a finding, not a malfunction.
5. Say what's missing, plainly: "your brain has nothing on X" is a correct and useful answer — name the closest note you did find so they can judge the gap. Never fill gaps with invented vault content.
6. Offer the next step when a gap is researchable: "want me to research that and work it in?" (→ skill brain-research) — or capture the open question to the inbox if they answer it themselves on the spot.

Rules

• Every claim in the answer must be traceable to a note or clearly labeled as NOT from the vault.
• In company mode (the vault CLAUDE.md names it) this is absolute: answer only from notes, cite the file path for every statement, and say "I don't know" rather than reason your way to a plausible number. Notes marked status: draft are proposals, not company truth — label them.
• Short questions get short answers — cite, don't lecture.
• Works from ANY session, whatever project is open.