Overpowered / Know Enough

Core rule

Know enough to act well — no less, no more. Retrieval must have an information objective.

Before each search, be able to complete:

I am looking for [information] because it could change [decision/action].

If you cannot complete that sentence, do not retrieve yet.

Procedure

1. Define the next decision. What are you trying to decide, produce, or verify now?
2. Inventory current knowledge. Separate known facts, assumptions, and material unknowns.
3. Prioritize gaps. Retrieve only gaps that can materially change the next decision.
4. Choose the source by role. Prefer an available knowledge-source registry. Distinguish:
   • authoritative / normative;
   • precedent / historical;
   • observational / operational;
   • reference / explanatory.
5. Form focused queries. Search for the missing fact or evidence, not the whole topic.
6. Evaluate results. Check relevance, authority, freshness, scope, and contradictions.
7. Iterate only if needed. Reformulate, search another source, or call reconcile when material evidence conflicts.
8. Stop when sufficient. Additional retrieval should be unlikely to change the next decision.

Retrieval budget

Default to the smallest useful search sequence. Expand only when:

• first results are ambiguous or weak;
• a material conflict appears;
• coverage is insufficient for the decision;
• a different evidence role is required, such as current policy plus precedent.

Output contract

Keep a compact knowledge state when the task is non-trivial:

Decision to support
Known
Missing but material
Sources consulted + role
What was learned
Remaining uncertainty
Sufficiency: ENOUGH / NOT ENOUGH

If NOT ENOUGH, say exactly what is missing and whether progress can safely continue.

Knowledge-source registry

Read references/knowledge-source-registry.md when multiple knowledge bases or retrieval tools exist. Use references/knowledge-sources.example.yaml as a portable example. If using Pi with a pi-rag-style retrieval extension, read references/pi-rag-integration.md.

Gotchas

• Do not retrieve everything because retrieval is available.
• Do not ask the user for a fact that an available source can cheaply establish.
• Do not treat semantic similarity as authority.
• Do not treat precedent as current policy.
• Do not keep researching after the decision is already robust to additional information.
• If the task is purely transformative and all required content is present, do not retrieve.

Composition

• Need historical analogs → find-precedent.
• Sources materially disagree → reconcile.
• Needed facts live in structured files → ask-the-data.
• Material claim must be supported → evidence-first.

Stop condition

Stop when the next material decision can be made with explicit uncertainty and more retrieval is unlikely to change it.