# Inquiry brief Create a record that a person or assistant can use without reading your previous conversation. This is a book-developed practice artifact. The core exercise needs no code or paid account. ## Blank reusable template **Inquiry name, version, and date:** **Parent question or attempt:** **Project output this inquiry should improve:** **Question:** **Situation:** Who is doing what, under which conditions? **Decision to make:** **My answer before assistance:** **Competing explanation or alternative:** **What I expect to observe:** **Evidence that would change my mind:** **Available inputs and source locations:** **Missing evidence:** **Allowed use of the inputs:** **Output requested:** **Acceptance criteria:** **How to handle missing information:** **What this inquiry will not establish:** **Time, scope, and stopping condition:** ### Attempt record **What I did, and whether assistance was used:** **Input version:** **Output location:** **What passed the criteria:** **What failed, with a specific example:** **Revision and its reason:** **Fresh example used to check the revision:** **What I can explain without the assistant:** **Error I can recognize without the assistant:** **Unresolved claims and ledger location:** **Next question:** ## Worked sample: fictional Himura Inc. case **Name:** `inquiry-brief-v1`. **Parent:** The learner-task branch of `curiosity-map-v1`. **Output:** Revise `workshop-brief-v1` while preserving uncertainties in `claim-evidence-ledger-v1`. **Question:** What changes would make this synthetic action-list activity practice the stated learner task and expose unsupported additions? **Situation:** Audy is designing a provisional thirty-minute workshop example. Its proposed adult learners would turn meeting notes into action lists. No workshop has been delivered and no customer need has been validated. **Decision:** Whether the brief needs a corresponding practice input and checking criteria in addition to a clearer learner outcome. **Starting answer:** Audy has provisional criteria from her own earlier inspection. Replacing “understand effective follow-up” with a specific action-list outcome may be enough to guide a fresh draft without carrying those criteria into its instructions. **Alternative:** Better wording alone may leave the activity and review criteria unspecified. **Evidence that would change the answer:** An agenda can use the revised outcome while never asking a learner to produce an action list; a polished list can pass a vague check while adding unsupported commitments. ### Synthetic input 1. The facilitator agreed to circulate the notes by Friday. 2. The group suggested asking the venue about access arrangements; nobody was assigned. 3. The group agreed to try a shorter introduction at the next session; no owner was assigned. **Available evidence:** These invented notes, Audy's draft, and her comparison of input with output. **Missing evidence:** Actual educator problems, learner attempts, delivery results, and willingness to pay. **Requested output:** Revised practice instructions, a candidate action list, and a check against the notes. **Criteria:** Preserve agreed actions; retain only stated owners and deadlines; separate suggestions from commitments; flag missing execution details; require a learner attempt before showing a completed answer. **Missing-information rule:** Leave the gap visible and identify a useful clarification. Do not invent an owner, deadline, agreement, interview, or result. **Cannot establish:** Learning gains, demand, or viability. ### Worked attempt and repair **Faulty candidate:** “Facilitator: circulate notes and confirm access by Friday. Organizer: prepare a shorter introduction before the next session.” **Review:** The first circulation commitment is supported. The access task was only suggested; its owner and deadline were not supplied. The introduction was agreed, but its owner was invented. **Repair:** Keep the circulation commitment. Record the venue proposal as unresolved. Keep the agreed introduction change with the owner explicitly missing. Revise the practice instructions to require these distinctions. **Fresh challenge:** “We could send a reminder on Thursday; a decision will be made tomorrow.” **Expected review:** Thursday is a proposed timing, not a confirmed deadline. The reminder remains unresolved pending a decision. **Unaided explanation:** An agreed action may still lack an owner. A possible action is not made into an agreement by putting it in a tidy list. **Next question:** Can a different synthetic input expose a distinction the current criteria fail to cover? ## Acceptance criteria - The brief can be understood without access to the earlier chat. - The starting hypothesis was saved before the final answer. - The question points to a decision and names a result that could change it. - Each claim is supported by an appropriate input or is explicitly provisional. - The output can be checked against criteria chosen before reviewing it. - At least one observed defect leads to a targeted repair, or the record explains what meaningful challenge the output survived. - A fresh example checks the important distinction rather than repeating the same successful output. - You can explain the decision and identify a plausible error without consulting the assistant. ## Common failure and repair **Failure:** The question asks for proof of business or learning outcomes using only a synthetic example. **Repair:** Narrow the immediate decision to the design property the example can reveal. Name the actual external evidence needed for the larger claim. **Failure:** The assistant returns a polished agenda when checking criteria were needed. **Repair:** Specify the output directly and provide one acceptable example. Preserve the question if the question itself was clear. **Failure:** The prompt asks why the preferred option is best. **Repair:** Ask under what conditions each option would be useful, and request a concrete counterexample to the preferred choice. **Failure:** You accept the output but cannot explain why. **Repair:** Compare one correct and one faulty example, explain the difference, consult the evidence, and try a new pair. Return to [Chapter 4](../chapters/04-the-question-is-the-unit-of-learning.md).