A worked example

Follow one question the whole way through. The shape is the same for any of them.

The question

"Records relating to a matter of public importance have not been released. Is the refusal consistent with the social contract, and if not, what would fix it?"

Step 1 — it starts as a decision

The question is recorded, with your initial position and your confidence in it. Both are provisional and both are stored, because a position you later change is part of your record.

Step 2 — the evidence chain, gaps and all

You lay out the links:

• have — the statutory duty exists, with a citation. Strength: high.
• have — the request was made and refused, with the refusal letter. Strength: high.
• have — the stated exemption, and its text. Strength: high.
• missing — the withheld material itself. Reason: classified.
• missing — the internal decision to withhold. Reason: blocked.

Two gaps, both named, both with a reason. You set your threshold: you will act at 85% even though this chain will never reach 100% — because the missing links are held by the party the conclusion is about.

Step 3 — the context is assembled

The engine builds the layered dimensions: the general facts, then country, then state, then this community and area. The relevant law layer brings in the statute and the exemption. Every block is headed with the file it came from.

Step 4 — the first-principles check

The model reasons only over that assembled text. It does not decide whether the refusal was right. It checks whether your conclusion follows from your links — and, in this case, reports that the chain supports "the refusal is not authorised by the exemption as written" while it does not support any claim about why the refusal was made.

That distinction is the check doing its job. One of those is in your chain; the other is a story you were about to attach to it.

Step 5 — you decide

You record the narrower conclusion. Your position, your confidence, the chain, and the AI's read are all stored together, disagreements included.

Step 6 — the fix

The conclusion points at a root cause: no clock, and no consequence for silence. That is a draftable fix — a duty on a named official, a date, a penalty, and somebody outside the agency who can verify it. It goes to the fix bill library as a proposal.

Step 7 — publishing, and doing something

Optionally the fix is published to the movement's social network. And the action you take next — a call placed, an explainer written — is logged with its evidence and credited.

Total elapsed: an evening. What survives it: a sourced chain with its gaps named, a decision somebody can audit, and a proposed remedy pointed at a specific root cause.