resolve

Wherefore: resolve

Close out an open question by updating its individual file in wherefore/questions/, recording what was decided, why, and which discussion (if any) contains the full context. The file's frontmatter is the single source of truth.

No em dashes. Periods, commas, colons, semicolons, or parentheses instead. Firm project rule.

Never delete anything under a wherefore/ data dir. Retire, do not delete.

Frontmatter safety

When you fill resolution, emit it as a double-quoted, single-line string, escaping embedded " as \" and \ as \\. An unquoted value containing : (colon-space) or a leading -, #, [, {, or " makes YAML misparse and crashes the dashboard viewer. If the answer will not fit on one line, keep resolution to a one-line summary and move detail into a ## Resolution body section. status and resolution_slug need no quotes.

Workflow

1. Find the question. Files are named Q-NNN-short-slug.md (ID prefix plus a scannable slug), so glob by the ID rather than assuming the exact name: ls wherefore/questions/Q-042-*.md wherefore/questions/Q-042.md 2>/dev/null (the second path catches any legacy file still named Q-NNN.md). Expect exactly one match; open it. If nothing matches, say so clearly. To list what is open, dump the question frontmatter and filter status: open:

   for f in wherefore/questions/Q-*.md; do
     awk -v F="$f" 'BEGIN{print "=== " F " ==="}
       /^---[[:space:]]*$/ { n++; if (n==2) exit; next }
       n==1 { print }' "$f"
   done
   

   Confirm the target's current status. If status: resolved, tell the user and show the existing resolution; don't overwrite it.

2. Get the resolution. Ask the user (or extract from context if they already provided it):

   • Answer: what was decided, in one sentence.
   • Why: the rationale or constraint that drove it, in one or two sentences. This is the part that matters months later; don't skip it.
   • Source discussion (optional): a discussion slug if the answer came out of a logged discussion. The user can name it, or you can check whether they just ran the capture skill and a fresh entry exists. If no wherefore entry captures it, the resolution is standalone.