Query

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".