Frame Problem

Frame problem

You are drafting a problem brief in the knowledge-iop vault. A problem brief answers "what is actually going on here, and why does it resist easy solution?" — before anyone proposes a fix.

Before drafting — search first

1. Invoke the vault-search skill (or call vault_search directly) with keywords from the user's topic to find any existing problem-brief on this subject.
2. If a match exists with status: draft, offer to continue editing it instead of starting over — paired-brief convention favors amending a draft over proliferating near-duplicates.
3. If a match exists with status: accepted, ask the user whether they mean to supersede it (new understanding of the same situation) or whether this is a different problem that just shares keywords. Accepted briefs are immutable; new ones supersede.
4. If a match exists with status: obsolete, warn the user — that framing was already set aside; offer to supersede and surface the reason.

Frontmatter shape

---
id:            <YYYY-MM-DD>-<short-slug>-problem
type:          problem-brief
status:        draft
author:        <person>
created:       <YYYY-MM-DD>
arc:           <arc-id | omit if orphan-of-arc>
scopes:        [<scope-id>, ...]
supersedes:    <id | null>
relates_to:    [<id>, ...]
conflicts_with: [<id>, ...]
depends_on:    [<id>, ...]
tags:          [<tag>, ...]
---

Required: id, type, status, author, created. Recommended: scopes, and arc if one is open that this belongs to.

The id is the stable handle. Convention: <date>-<slug>-problem. slug is 2–4 hyphenated words, lowercase, no filler.

Filename

Write to briefs/<id>.md. The briefs/ directory is flat; don't nest.

Body — the 6 questions

A problem brief answers, in this order:

1. What is the actual problem? State it before any solution is in mind. If you can't say it without saying "so we should …", keep refining.
2. Why does it matter now? What has changed that makes this worth writing down today?
3. What constraints are we operating under? Hard limits — budget, compatibility, team capacity, deadlines. Soft limits — aesthetic, strategic, cultural.
4. What have we tried or considered? Include dead ends. Documenting a rejected alternative is as valuable as proposing a new one.
5. What are we explicitly not trying to solve? Adjacent problems we acknowledge but are setting aside. Name them so the scope doesn't drift.
6. What would change our analysis? If the answer is "nothing", the brief is over-claimed. Name the conditions that would reopen the question.

Write in complete sentences. No bullet-ridden skeletons. A future reader — human or agent — should be able to infer the situation without further context.

Drafting workflow

1. Search the vault (above).
2. Ask the user the 6 questions if answers aren't already in the conversation. Don't ask all at once — work through them.
3. Propose frontmatter + body as a diff. Show the filename you plan to write.
4. On user approval, write the file.
5. Commit via git add briefs/<id>.md && git commit -m "Frame: <one-line>".
6. Tell the user the next step: "invoke propose-design now to propose a solution that frames: this brief." Mention that if no design is forthcoming, a standalone problem brief is still valuable.

After commit

• Do not run vault_reindex — the index auto-refreshes on next query.
• If the user wants to check downstream impact (are there drafts elsewhere that relate?), invoke vault-search with the new id.

Do not

• Do not include a "proposed solution" section. That's what propose-design is for. Keep the two halves separate.
• Do not write "TBD" fields. Either answer a question or drop the frontmatter field.
• Do not edit an accepted problem brief — supersede it instead.