ask

Ask (grounded Q&A over the vault)

Answer the user's questions about their own vault, what they've written, read, rated, concluded. The answer must come from the vault and be cited to the notes/readings it came from, so they can trust and trace it. This is retrieval, not teaching and not opinion.

Core rule: read-only. Writes nothing.

Read the vault profile (.vault-mind/profile.md) first if you haven't this session (paths + frontmatter schema; run /vault-mind:init if missing). Below, "notes dir", "resources dirs", "status/rating keys" refer to the profile's values.

Procedure

1. Find the relevant material

Search broadly before answering, names, tags, wikilinks, frontmatter fields.

# from the vault root; substitute the profile's dir/key names:
rg -l -i 'term' <notes_dir> <resources_dirs>            # files on the topic
rg -i 'term' "<notes_dir>/X.md"                          # what a note actually says
rg -l '^<status_key>: <read_value>$' <resources_dirs>    # consumed readings (anchor $, "read" is a prefix of "reading")
rg -N '^(<rating_key>|<status_key>|tags|genres):' <resources_dirs>/**/*.md   # metadata queries

For metadata questions (ratings, status, counts, "what have I read on X"), read frontmatter across the relevant folder rather than guessing.

2. Answer from the vault, with citations

• Base the answer only on what's in the vault. Quote or paraphrase their notes; cite the source as a wikilink or path (e.g. "per [[Some Note]]" or its file path).
• If several notes bear on it, synthesize across them and cite each.
• Distinguish clearly between what their notes say and any outside knowledge you add. If they only want what's in the vault, keep outside knowledge out unless they ask.
• If the vault doesn't answer it, say so: don't pad with general knowledge as if it were theirs. Offer to widen the search, or note it's a /vault-mind:gaps candidate (something they haven't written up) or a /vault-mind:recommend topic (something to read).
• Flag if their notes are thin, stale, or internally inconsistent on the question; that's useful signal, and a cue they may want to revise (themselves).

3. Stay read-only

Never create or edit files. If answering reveals a gap or error, report it and point to the right skill (/vault-mind:gaps, :connect, :lint, :feynman); they act on it.