Development record
A question that breaks abcd's asking rules still reaches the person as an error, after the product thinker asked several times for it to stop (2026-10-30, and before in iss-2610230745597968). In one planning interview the abcd:question-drafter returned a refusal for 3 of 10 drafts because the quoted material and its options did not fit the 24-row limit for one decision; the calling agent then put over-limit questions to the person itself, and once skipped the drafter altogether, so the question check blocked the question in front of the person (no Decide later option, 28 rows). Three gaps let this through: the drafter may give up and hand back a refusal instead of working until its draft passes; it counts rows by its own reckoning rather than through abcd's check; and nothing makes the calling agent ask only a question that passed, so the hook's refusal is the first check the question meets, and the person sees it. The product thinker's proposal: a sub-agent keeps working on the question until it conforms, and only then is it put to the person.
A question that breaks abcd's asking rules still reaches the person as an error, after the product thinker asked several times for it to stop (2026-10-30, and before in iss-2610230745597968). In one planning interview the abcd:question-drafter returned a refusal for 3 of 10 drafts because the quoted material and its options did not fit the 24-row limit for one decision; the calling agent then put over-limit questions to the person itself, and once skipped the drafter altogether, so the question check blocked the question in front of the person (no Decide later option, 28 rows). Three gaps let this through: the drafter may give up and hand back a refusal instead of working until its draft passes; it counts rows by its own reckoning rather than through abcd's check; and nothing makes the calling agent ask only a question that passed, so the hook's refusal is the first check the question meets, and the person sees it. The product thinker's proposal: a sub-agent keeps working on the question until it conforms, and only then is it put to the person.
Refinement 2026-10-30
The product thinker refined the proposal the same day: this is a question-writing agent whose rules can be configured where a repository needs it, and a question too long for one screen is split into numbered parts, such as Q1a and Q1b, rather than shortened or sent over the limit.
Frontmatter
| id | iss-2610301855200679 |
|---|---|
| type | issue |
| lifecycle | open |
| severity | minor |
.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-2610301855200679-a-question-that-breaks-abcd-s-asking.md
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References1
- itd-2610230756259215Every question abcd asks passes its check before the person sees itrelated
mentions4
- dcn-26103019134699552026-10-30 — The product thinker ruled on 2026-10-30 that they are asked only the questions they need to answer, the design decisions with an obvious trade-off, and that the technical facilitator settles everything else that is sensible. From then on the technical facilitator settles routing, typed links, wording that follows from settled rulings, review findings the record settles and the acceptance criteria of an intent the product thinker asked to plan, and records each such decision with its reason; a design choice with an obvious trade-off is still put to the product thinker. The same day the product thinker asked for iss-2610301855200679 to be planned as an intent, which is their sign-off for planning itd-2610230756259215.
- iss-2610230745597968Questions still break abcd's asking limits after several rounds of fixes, on two accounts on 2026-10-23. (1) In a repository abcd manages, on another account, an agent bundled four separate issues into one question without going through the abcd:question-drafter agent, and the question check refused 21 parts at once: headers that were not role chips, no Decide later option, no Now: or Change later: lines, and question text that did not quote the thing being decided; the status line meanwhile read 'waiting on the product thinker'. (2) In abcd's own checkout, a question was refused because its text did not end with the question, and it also ran 25 rows against the 24-row limit (header and frame 8, question text 7, options 10), which the check reports but does not refuse, so it would have been shown and a narrow window might cut it; at the same time an abcd:question-drafter run spent 9 minutes 32 seconds and 174.2k tokens recounting over-limit tabs with a hand-written rows script. Earlier rounds include iss-2610071538055431, iss-2610100626327722, iss-2610161734179773 and the open iss-2610090816296964.
- itd-2610301914350541A repository sets the layout limits of abcd's questions
- spc-2610301917245442Every question abcd asks passes its check before the person sees it