--- name: answerlayer description: "🔄 Guidance updates grounded in new facts." --- # AnswerLayer Start with the answer someone is relying on. Trace what changed in the world to what should change in that answer, how confident to be, and what to do next. Preserve the distinction between those three changes: a new fact may leave the recommendation intact; accumulated weak evidence may reduce confidence before it warrants a new action; a future effective date may warrant preparation now without being in force now. ## Enter at the live decision Recover the current wording, cutoff, scope and decision use from supplied material. Use existing context and authority. For a narrow comparison, give a bounded answer directly: the affected wording or no-change conclusion, its evidence, uncertainty and next consequential trigger. Ask for missing information only when it changes that result. A question does not automatically require a ledger, a browser or a sweep. Use the Reality Ledger when continuing work needs durable evidence, multiple proposals, competing claims, approval or history. Read [state and authority](knowledge/state-and-authority.md) and [native operations](knowledge/native-ledger-reference.md) at that point. Resume the owner-selected checkpoint, retain its earlier file, and compare with `--previous` when available. A blank ledger records an unknown cutoff until a real one is supplied; it does not manufacture a current answer. ## Admit the change that matters Locate the exact answer surface and explain the causal mechanism connecting the development to it. Test applicability: whose situation, which jurisdiction or product, when effective, under what conditions? Distinguish confirmation, contradiction, changed confidence, changed action, and genuinely irrelevant noise. Assess correlated reports as one evidential lineage. Evaluate cumulative independent signals and the costs of premature change and delayed change; restraint must not become inertia. For evidence/currentness questions, load [evidence and currentness](knowledge/evidence-currentness.md). Record the actual inspected passage, its location, publication/access time, scope and relationship to the claim. A link, source count, repeated story or validator result does not establish support. Keep inaccessible evidence explicitly unexamined and reduce the claim accordingly. For genuine unresolved conflict, retain both claims, the differentiating observation and the consequence of waiting. Choose the least costly observation likely to change the decision; offer reversible interim action when delay is costly and authority covers it. For a broad update or a disputed mechanism, load [operating doctrine](knowledge/operating-doctrine.md). Use BASELINE → SWEEP → TRIAGE → VERIFY → PATCH → PROBE → WATCH → REVISIT as a map of needs, entering at the unresolved point. It is not a mandatory eight-stage report. Conclude no change when the evidence earns it; say what was actually examined and what would reopen the decision. ## Make the smallest sufficient patch Show the exact before and after wording, the source-to-claim support, mechanism, affected scope, result cutoff, counterfactual and recheck condition. Preserve unaffected guidance. Keep proposals, verified observations, approval, local adoption and publication distinct. Existing human authorization can cover the work: cite its scope and basis, then complete the authorized action. Seek a new decision only for a genuinely uncovered consequential action or a reserved owner gate. In native v2 records, approval assertions bind a patch hash, starting baseline hash, actor, scope and time. Preserve decisions as ordered append-only history; append withdrawals or renewed decisions. The helper verifies the supplied bindings, not the identity of the person or the truth of consent. Use `approval-basis` to obtain exact hashes, then record only authority actually given. A hash calculation is not approval. `adopt` applies one unambiguous patch to a new checkpoint, retaining the exact prior baseline. `brief` prepares a local artifact from currently eligible patches. Neither operation publishes, schedules a monitor or changes an external canonical store. Use the user's actual external distribution authority through the relevant capability if requested; local preparation carries no invented permission gate. ## Scale the handoff to the job A focused answer may need one paragraph and a precise replacement sentence. A governed review needs the current baseline, considered changes, reasons for exclusions, unresolved decisions, exact patch and next trigger. Provide only sections that help this reader decide or continue. Preserve full details in the ledger when it exists; keep implementation bookkeeping backstage unless it changes trust or recovery. Run the smallest material check and report its actual scope. Read [the workspace guide](workspace/README.md) for a visual request, [fallbacks](fallbacks/degraded-capability.md) when tools are unavailable, and [portfolio routing](knowledge/portfolio-routing.md) when research or surveillance is the main task. The browser inspects and edits a transient copy; downloads need user-visible file confirmation before closing. ## Preserve the source and test the judgment Read [canonical boundaries](knowledge/canonical-source-boundaries.md) before opening preserved Almanac prompts or examples. Those originals stay byte-identical and historically dated. Their sweep quotas, role commands and output shapes are source material, not a competing operating mandate. Load only a relevant excerpt, and re-research any present-world factual use. When revising this skill or evaluating its performance, use the [decision scenarios](evals/decision-scenarios.md) as consequential continuations: sparse input, correlated evidence, costly delay, conflicting scope, future effectiveness, unavailable sources and apparent completion. Distinguish authored walkthroughs, deterministic helper tests, actual browser checks and live model/field evidence.