Submit Exploration

Submit exploration

You are authoring one explorer's draft within an inquiry. Other explorers' drafts are hidden from you (and vice versa) until the barrier releases. That isolation is the feature — treat it as such.

Before drafting — verify the inquiry

1. Ask the user for the inquiry id if not given.
2. Call vault_search with type: inquiry and the id's keywords, or call vault_edges on the inquiry id to confirm it exists.
3. Check the inquiry's status:
   • open → good, proceed.
   • ready_for_synthesis → the barrier already released; new explorations don't count. Ask the user whether to abandon or invoke synthesize instead.
   • resolved / abandoned → the inquiry is over; do not submit.
4. Read inquiries/<inquiry-id>/inquiry.md for the framing, constraints, out-of-scope, and evaluation criteria. Do NOT read any existing exploration files — isolation invariant.

Frontmatter shape

---
id:         <explorer-name>-<short-slug>   # unique within the inquiry
type:       exploration
status:     draft
author:     <explorer name>
inquiry:    <inquiry-id>
created:    <YYYY-MM-DD>
submitted:  null
---

Leave submitted: null until the user says the draft is ready. When they do, set status: submitted, submitted: <today>. Submission freezes the content — subsequent edits become an anti-pattern.

Filename

Write to inquiries/<inquiry-id>/explorations/<id>.md. Conventional id format: <author>-<slug> (e.g. alex-token-bucket.md). One file per explorer.

Body — answer the framing, on your own

Structure is flexible; clarity over form. Cover:

1. Your proposed approach. One paragraph up front.
2. Why this approach. Reason against the framing's constraints.
3. What it looks like. Concrete enough that a reader can evaluate it.
4. Cost and risk. Honest assessment. Cheap wins lose credibility.
5. What you considered and set aside. Two or three alternatives, briefly.
6. What you're unsure about. Naming uncertainty helps the synthesis weigh takes against each other.

Write as if no one else is writing an exploration — don't try to carve a niche against what you imagine others are doing. Good exploration presumes independence.

Drafting workflow

1. Verify the inquiry (see above). Do not peek at other explorations.
2. Read the framing. Ask clarifying questions of the user if the framing is ambiguous — but don't ask about other explorers.
3. Propose frontmatter + body as a diff with the filename.
4. Write on approval.
5. Commit: git add inquiries/<inquiry-id>/explorations/<id>.md && git commit -m "Explore: <one-line>".

Submission

When the user says the draft is ready to submit (not just save):

1. Update frontmatter: status: submitted, submitted: <today>.
2. Commit separately: git commit -m "Submit exploration: <id>".
3. Tell the user that submission freezes the content (content hash recorded); further edits become a withdraw+resubmit operation.

Withdraw

If the user decides an exploration shouldn't be included in the synthesis:

1. Update frontmatter: status: withdrawn, add a short reason in the body.
2. Commit.

This is an explicit, logged act. The vault has no force_withdraw that hides the attempt — withdrawals stay in history.

Do not

• Do not read other explorations while the inquiry is open. Not even "just to see". The vault reader filters these for you; don't go around it.
• Do not submit a "meta exploration" that synthesizes others' work before the barrier releases. That's synthesize, and it comes later.
• Do not edit a submitted exploration. Withdraw + resubmit if needed; the history stays visible.