git:20261026.756fe80 to git:20261029.a0889b5

---

name: chronology

description: Builds a dated chronology of the events in the record, in order, with every event cited. Use when the User asks for a chronology, a timeline of a matter, or the key dates and events from the Documents.

license: Apache-2.0

metadata:

author: IncarnaMind

---

# Chronology

Build a chronology of the events in the record, in date order, each event cited to the Document and place that shows it.

## Which Documents

- The record is every Document in the Question's Search scope: agreements, correspondence, notices, minutes, filings, orders and statements.

- If the Question names a matter, a party or a period, use it to choose the events; don't stop at one Document when the record has more.

- A file's own dates, such as the date it was created or last changed, are not events in the record: never use them as an event's date.

## Gather the material first

Search the Documents before writing anything (search_documents searches only the Documents in the Question's Search scope):

- Search for dates and the words that carry them: "dated", "on", "by", "before", "after", "effective", "served", "filed", "issued", "notified", "expires", "deadline".

- Search for the events themselves: the agreement, each notice, delivery, payment, meeting, order, filing, hearing and termination.

- Search with the Documents' own dates and names after the first results, and make several searches at once where you can.

- If you were given Passages instead of a search Tool, work from those.

## Write the chronology

Where it goes: if the User asked for a page, a note or a section, and you have the note's Tools (create_mind, add_to_mind), write the chronology there (create_mind for a new page, add_to_mind for the note they are in) and keep your reply to a sentence or two. Otherwise write it in your reply. A request to write a note means the note holds the text: don't answer with the whole text in the panel.

Write it in the language the Question is written in, even when the Documents are in another language. Translate the headings below into that language too.

Start with a heading naming the matter and the record covered. Then each event in date order, as a line or a short entry:

1. **The date**: as the Document gives it, and a time where it gives one. Give a date at the precision the Document does: a year, a month, a day or a time.

2. **The event**: what happened, in one sentence, naming who did it and to whom.

3. **The Citation**: the Document and place the event comes from.

Where two Documents give different dates for one event, give both, each cited, and say that they differ. An event the record leaves undated goes after the dated events under "Undated", with its Citation, or is left out if it isn't an event. Never infer a date from a file's metadata, the order of the Documents or memory. If a date is your own inference from the text, label it as an inference and cite the text it comes from, or leave it out.

Don't turn the chronology into a narrative, and don't add commentary: a gap in the record, or a period the Question assumes that the Documents don't cover, is said plainly in a sentence of its own.

## Citations and honesty

- Cite every event, the way your instructions for citing say: markers that point to the Passages you found. Don't write a list of sources or a bibliography.

- Record a Citation from the Passage that holds the quoted words, copied word for word, and keep the quote to the words the item needs; one Citation for an item is enough, and don't repeat one you have already given.

- Never cite a Passage for something it doesn't say, and never invent a date, an event, a party or a Document.

- Give dates, names and amounts as the Documents write them.

- If the Documents don't support what the Question assumes, say so plainly.