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Guide · core

Use when

A person asks what the project’s documents say about something.

Looking for something else?

Facts the Graph already holds as entities (card Entity). Adding documents first (recipe Bring a set of documents into the project).

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Outcome

Each claim in the answer names its document, source date and passage. Nothing in the answer comes from outside the project.

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Before you start

  • The documents must be in the project and searchable. After you add them, check readiness first (recipe bring-in-a-corpus, card rule collection.3).
  • Answer from Penumbra, not from local copies of the files. The person needs citations they can reopen.

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Steps

  1. Search with the person’s words and with the words a document would use: penumbra files search "<query>" --collection-id <id>. Read the mode the result states (card rules search.1 and search.2). MCP: omnisearch.
  2. If a search finds nothing, try other words and lexical mode before you conclude the project lacks the fact (card rule search.10).
  3. Read the text around each passage you will use: penumbra files text <file> (card rule passage.9). MCP: read.
  4. When two documents disagree, do not choose by date alone. First prefer the document that the person says governs. A newer draft or proposal does not replace a document that governs. Among the documents that remain, list their source dates with penumbra files versions <file>; the newest decision wins. Say what it replaced, and say that the sources disagree (card rule search.8). If neither the person nor the documents show which one governs, keep both in the answer and say so.
  5. Keep the File name, source date and passage ID for each claim (card rule search.9).

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Check

  • Each claim maps to a passage ID that penumbra files chunks <passage-id> reopens.
  • No claim rests on a document outside the question.

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If it goes wrong

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Worth offering

  • If two documents disagree, show both with their source dates, ask which one governs, and offer to say which one is current.
  • If the answer states facts that the Graph does not hold, offer to add them as cited entities (recipe capture-by-hand).
  • If search finds nothing, offer to bring in the documents that hold the answer (recipe bring-in-a-corpus).

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Report

Give the answer first. Under each claim, name the document, its source date and the passage. Say where documents disagree, which one you preferred, and why. Say which questions the documents do not answer.

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Keep going

Search · Passage and citation · File · Collection · Bring a set of documents into the project