Give it a fact, ask it a question
Did my organization actually use what I told it?
Last lesson you told your organization about your work. But telling it isn't the same as it using what you said. So today you check, once, on something small.
Pick one fact from your brief: a price, a name, a rule. Ask one question that can't be answered without it. Then read the answer with your brief open beside it, and point to the line it came from.
If you can point to it, good. You've seen your organization use what you gave it. If you can't, even better: you've caught it before that answer went anywhere that matters.
Here's why this is worth twenty minutes. AI answers confidently whether or not it knows. A wrong number in a smooth sentence looks exactly like a right one. The only defence is a habit: show me where that came from. Today you ask it for the first time. In Week 2, the context week, you build that habit into your whole organization.
One thing to know before you start: you'll use two agents today, in two threads. The Professor helps you pick the fact and check the answer. Your Chief of Staff gets the question and runs the job. Keep both threads open.
One question, one answer and your own check of it, saved as a dated course-progress trace beside your unchanged before photo, linked to the brief and actual job records.
It's the first time you see for yourself whether your organization is using what you told it.
You pick a fact. You ask a question that needs it. You check the answer against your brief.
You're the one who checks. If it can't show you where a number came from, you don't use the number.
Hunter's opening
A confident answer can use the wrong number. Today you'll make one fact visible from source to answer, then decide whether it was used correctly.
Think about the last time someone handed you a number that mattered. A room holds 24. The deposit is 30 percent. The deadline's Friday. You may have asked: where did that come from?
Your organization has to answer the same question every time, and today you find out whether it can.
Before you start
Bring the corrected founder brief and approved placements from Lesson 4. Continue with the same personal or fictional case. Keep the before photo unchanged.
Start or resume this lesson
Call in The Professor (new thread, type @, pick it; on Codex, ask by name), then paste this. Not in your @ list? Do step 6 of 0.3 Get your organization. Until then, paste it anyway: it asks for The Professor by name.
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to start or resume Lesson 5. Read course/workforce/prompts/anw-l05.txt and course/workforce/lessons/anw-l05.md completely. Check my approved saved work, ask one question, and wait. Keep my original baseline unchanged.
The full start prompt this points at (Hunter's, from the backend)
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to guide Lesson 5. Read course/workforce/lessons/anw-l05.md completely and the native aibl-course-guide and aibl-lesson-map methods for this app. This named lesson governs this activity; do not restart the legacy interview or Chief of Staff hire. Read my approved work/course/staff/approved-sources.md and founder-brief.md and keep before-picture.md, starting-line.md, baseline-answers.md and source-plan.md unchanged. Check actual approved text and unresolved source permissions; missing approval is a hold, not permission inferred from a file. Ask me to choose one dated fact and its exact source, then one question needing it. Wait for my answers. A new fact needs its own source and approval. Chief of Staff maintains the founder brief and approved-source register; the student gives it any operational correction for exact preview, yes and readback. The Professor does not write those operational records. Hand my exact job to the Chief of Staff with only approved work inputs, excluding the interview conversation, teaching preferences and private reflections. The Chief of Staff must show its plan and wait for my go. The Chief of Staff chooses an available native answering agent: Knowledge Librarian for a source-based answer without durable filing, or the Communications Writer [YGM] for a draft and any review the job needs. Reading a profile or a Professor example is not invocation. Relay exact agent returns separately from summaries; if native dispatch, approved inputs or a return is unavailable, stop the run and name the missing evidence. Open the dated source sentence, actual supplied job input and exact returned answer together. Let me identify the supported sentence, missing detail or unsupported claim and decide whether a correction belongs in the source, supplied input or answer. Never supply my assessed judgment. Offer one cue or a different example if needed. If I request a correction, route one new attempt through the Chief of Staff and retain both attempts under the actual runs/ job paths. Invent no run path, receipt, answer or citation. A correct answer does not establish that its source is true. Propose a distinct dated Single-fact trace course-progress addition to the existing before-photo record/index work/course/staff/before-picture.md: dated source and fact, exact question, actual answering agent, supplied-input and exact-return references, my check in my words, unknowns and any correction references. Keep my original answers, corrected summary and teaching choices separate. Show the exact addition, ask explicit save approval, and read it back. Save no private reflections or their paths. Saving is optional; continuing needs a separate fresh instruction. On return, use approved existing continuation evidence to find the next incomplete step; if its location is missing, report the gap without inventing a record or rerunning finished work. No sending, account connections, durable knowledge filing, agent changes or baseline rewriting.
Same finding as Lesson 4. The student repo (agent-workforce, branch student, republished Sept 21) holds the old module files, anw-m1-03.md and its prompts; there is no anw-l05.md or anw-l05.txt. Until the lesson-numbered files are in the package, this start request fails. The record names match Tyler's build: founder-brief.md under work/course/staff/ for the student's check, and runs/ for the Chief of Staff's job records.
One fact, one small test
Choose a fact where a mistake would be noticeable: a name, a number, or a rule. Date it and name its source. Saving it isn't the result. The test is whether the next answer receives and uses it without adding something unsupported.
For Dana's fictional practice, the note might say: “Sessions require 24 hours' notice to cancel without charge. Fictional practice policy, confirmed for this exercise today.” A useful question is what information is needed to decide whether a cancellation is chargeable. The policy alone does not reveal when the client gave notice. A sound answer should ask for that missing time rather than invent a fee decision.
A dated room note says, “Maximum capacity: 24 people.” Asked how many places can be offered, “No more than 24, according to the room note” has support. “Offer 30 and add chairs” doesn't. Draw the line from the answer's number to the note's number. If you can't, ask where the extra detail came from.
If you're checking a bill instead, keep its assumptions visible. “$250 per session” supports $1,000 for four sessions, but it doesn't establish that every month contains four sessions. The number of sessions is another fact you need before giving a monthly total.
Doesn't need it: "Write a cancellation email." Any AI can do that without ever reading your policy, and you'd learn nothing.
Needs it: "A client cancelled with 12 hours' notice. Do we charge?" That can't be answered without your 24-hour rule, so the answer shows whether the rule was read. That's the whole test.
It won't answer straight away. First it shows you a short plan: which agent will answer (the Knowledge Librarian for an answer from your sources, the Communications Writer for a draft) and which of your approved files it will give them. You say go. Then it brings back the exact answer, separate from its own summary, and tells you which line of your brief it used. That last line is what you check in step 3.
For the workshop, keep the original date conflict and missing link visible. A newly approved fact can settle one gap only if it actually comes from a source authorized to settle it.
The picture follows a fact through three things you can open: its source, the input to the job, and the returned answer. Matching words alone don't show whether the source reached the run.
dated source sentence → approved input to the named job → answer sentence, with a separate branch for a missing fact. Keep the student's check beside the answer.
His placeholder asks for a fact followed through three things: the source sentence, the input to the job, the answer. There is no drawing of yours for that. Your Visual 13 (the workbench folder map) was held out on Sept 20 (C144: five paths wrong, old lesson numbers, cut off at lesson width) and his placeholder doesn't ask for it. So this page has no picture until one is drawn. The idea is simple enough for a three-box drawing.
Try it
1. Give one fact
Reuse one precise line from the approved brief. If you add a fact, identify its source and date and approve the addition. Ask The Professor to show the saved line. Don't rewrite an earlier baseline answer to include it.
Say this to The Professor:
Open my brief. Help me pick one fact with a number, a name or a rule in it. Show me the saved line with its source and the date the source was written. If I add a new fact, ask me for its source and date and help me prepare the exact proposal. I will ask Chief of Staff to preview, obtain my explicit yes, save and read back that operational addition. You save only my approved course-progress trace. Don't rewrite my earlier answers.
2. Ask a question that needs it
Give Chief one specific question using that approved source. Read its plan and approve the necessary work. Chief handles routing; The Professor helps you understand the exercise. For a source-based answer, Chief can ask the Knowledge Librarian to find the answer in the approved material, without saving new knowledge for future jobs. For a draft, Chief uses You've Got Mail, or YGM for short, your Communications Writer, and any review the job needs. Keep the job small and see which agent actually answered. Don't require an external connection or a whole knowledge-filing project for this test.
Now call in your Chief of Staff (new thread, type @, pick it; on Codex, ask by name). Not in your @ list? Do step 6 of 0.3 Get your organization; until then, start your message with “Have aibl-chief-of-staff handle this:”. Then say:
Here is my question: [your question]. Use only my approved brief and sources. Before anyone answers, show me your plan and which agent will answer, and wait for my go. Then bring me the exact answer, separate from your summary, and tell me which line of my brief it used.
3. Draw the line
Open the source, supplied input, and exact returned answer together. Identify the sentence that relies on your fact. Say whether it matches, leaves a needed detail unresolved, or introduces an unsupported claim. Decide whether a correction belongs in the source, the information supplied, or the answer. If needed, request one corrected attempt through Chief of Staff and keep both versions. The Professor saves your learning check as a dated before-photo addition only with your approval. Chief of Staff alone maintains the operational brief and source permissions.
Back with The Professor, say:
Show me the source line, what was supplied to the job, and the exact answer side by side. I'll point to the sentence that depends on my fact and say whether the source supports it, leaves something out, or adds something unsupported. Show my check in my own words as a new dated course-progress trace in my before photo, linked to the brief and actual run, and show the exact location; wait for my explicit yes before saving, then read it back. Keep the first answer even if we ask for a correction.
This test shows whether the answer used the source correctly. You still need to check whether the source itself is right. Approval to use a document doesn't make every fact in it true.
Bare "Chief" nine times, and "You've Got Mail, or YGM for short, your Communications Writer" in step 2. Hunter approved title-first naming for Module 1 after this file was written; the same pass is needed here.
| What you notice | First question |
|---|---|
| The answer includes a number with no support | Which approved source supplies that number? If none, keep it unresolved. |
| The right fact exists but wasn't supplied | Which source did Chief give the answering agent? |
| The source is ambiguous | What exact clarification would settle the ambiguity? |
| The correct fact was supplied but the answer changes it | Which part of the answer needs correction against that source? |
| The reply is only The Professor explaining an example | Where is the organization's returned answer? Teaching help doesn't stand in for the run. |
| A required source cannot be opened | Record the missing source. Don't substitute a similarly named file without approval. |
The answer sounds right but you can't find its source? Ask, "Which line did you use?" Open that line and check it. Until you can show support, treat the answer as unsourced.
The answer adds a number you didn't supply? Name the number. Supply the fact if you have it, or ask your guide to leave a question.
The source was vague, or wasn't read? Correct the source in your own words and keep the old version, or ask your guide to read the right part first. Then try again. A better second answer shows what changed this time, not that every future answer is fixed.
Hunter's closing line for this section
If you're unsure, compare one source sentence with one answer sentence. Ask The Professor for a hint, then make the judgment yourself. “I cannot establish the source yet” is a useful finding.
What you'll keep
Keep the dated fact, exact question, answering agent, input source, returned answer, and your check. Chief's job records belong with that run under runs/; The Professor's approved learning record points to them from your course records. A corrected attempt goes beside the first, not over it.
This is the first small test of the context you added. Week 2 develops the Librarian's approved filing and retrieval process. It should use your placement decisions and sources, not discard them for a fresh generic example.
Before you finish
You can point to a sentence in the answer and the source it depends on, or name exactly why the link is not established. You can distinguish a missing input from a wrong source or a wrong answer. Your check is saved separately from the agent's response and the original baseline.
Next: Module 3, Make your Chief of Staff work for you. Bring your corrected brief and one of the three jobs you wrote down in Lesson 3. The brief informs the work; Chief's profile still defines its responsibilities.
Hunter's wording
Bring your corrected brief and one recurring case.