brain

Brain — cited answers from your governed knowledge base

Ask your knowledge brain a question and get an answer grounded in your governed corpus, where every claim carries a qmd:// citation. The brain does not paraphrase from memory — it retrieves governed memories and cites them, so any answer is verifiable after the fact.

Overview

This is the read surface of the Governed Second Brain: your files are compiled into governed memories, governed by deterministic code, and retrieved with citations by qmd. The brain_search MCP tool fronts that retrieval. The job here is to turn a natural-language question into a cited answer — and to refuse to answer beyond what the citations support.

Prerequisites

• The governed-second-brain plugin is installed, which auto-wires the governed-brain MCP server.
• Mode is automatic. In local mode (default) search runs in-process against your local ~/.teamkb index — no network, no API key, no token; qmd must be on your PATH. In team mode (when TEAMKB_API_URL is set) the same brain_search proxies to your team's governed brain over the tailnet with your per-user token; nothing extra is needed on your machine. Either way every hit is a qmd:// citation.

Instructions

Step 1: Search the governed corpus

Call brain_search with the user's question as query. Keep scope at its default (curated) unless the user explicitly asks for inbox/archived material — curated is the governed, promoted knowledge.

brain_search({ query: "the user's question, lightly cleaned up", scope: "curated" })

The tool returns { source, results: [{ citation, snippet, score, collection }] }. Each citation is a qmd://COLLECTION/FILENAME URI — the receipt for that hit.

Step 2: Answer ONLY from the cited results

• Synthesize a direct answer from the returned snippets.
• Attach the qmd:// citation to every claim, inline — for example: The proxy reverse-proxies the API (qmd://kb-curated/system-map.md).
• If two hits conflict, surface both with their citations rather than silently picking one — the governance layer tracks contradictions; do not paper over them.
• Do not add knowledge the citations do not support. Any reasoning beyond the corpus must be labeled clearly as inference, not the brain's answer.

Step 3: Handle an empty result honestly

If results is empty, say so plainly: the brain has nothing governed on that topic. Do not fall back to general knowledge and present it as the brain's answer. Optionally note that the topic may need to be captured (run /brain-save).

Output

1. A short, direct answer.
2. Each load-bearing claim followed by its qmd:// citation.
3. A closing Sources list of the distinct qmd:// URIs used.

Examples

Cited answer:

/brain what does my system map say about the proxy?

→ The proxy is the single ingress; it reverse-proxies each domain to its service
  and must be reloaded, not restarted, after edits (qmd://kb-curated/system-map.md).

Sources:
- qmd://kb-curated/system-map.md

Empty result (honest refusal):

/brain what is my refund policy?

→ The brain has nothing governed on a refund policy. I won't guess from general
  knowledge. If this should be in your brain, capture it with /brain-save.

Error Handling

Situation	Response
brain_search returns empty results	State the brain has nothing governed; do not fabricate.
qmd is not on PATH	Retrieval is degraded (the server returns empty rather than crashing). Tell the user to install qmd 2.x on PATH.
MCP tool unavailable	The plugin/MCP server is not enabled; tell the user to install/enable governed-second-brain.
User asks to write/capture	Out of scope here — direct them to /brain-save.

Guardrails

• Read-only. This skill never writes to the corpus — capture and governance live in /brain-save.
• Never invent a qmd:// URI. Cite only URIs returned by brain_search.
• Prefer fewer, well-cited claims over a broad answer that cannot be anchored.

Resources

• Governed Second Brain — the stack this brain belongs to.
• intentional-cognition-os — the compiler (ICO).
• The write counterpart: the /brain-save skill (governed capture).