asklisted

# ask Answer the question, do not hand back a list of pages. The answer is the deliverable — a ranked list of five files the user then has to read themselves is a search engine, and they already have one. ## How to write Neutral, plain, direct — a reference article, not an essay. Follow Orwell's rules: no familiar figures of speech, no long word where a short one works, cut every word that can go, active over passive, everyday English over jargon. Give numbers where you have them. No throat-clearing, no closing remark. ## Retrieve 1. Read `index.md`. It is the catalogue, and at this vault's size it is the retrieval layer. 2. `grep` the vault for the question's key terms and entity names — deliberate, not a shortfall. Entity names dominate this corpus and plain text search is strong on them. 3. Read the pages that look relevant, in full. 4. Read `mem/` when the question touches the user's own goals, projects, or people. 5. Only if `wiki/` comes up thin, fall back to `raw/`. **When that fallback fires, say so** — it means compilation missed something, and that is worth knowing. ## Answer Synthesised prose. Every claim carries a citation to the page it came from, and through that page to the original source. If you cannot cite it, do not assert it. Keep `## What sources say` distinct from `## Current view` when the distinction matters — never present the user's own evolving position as though a source established it. **Always end with a coverage note.** What the v