Answer Protocol — how Gurbani questions are answered from this knowledge base

Pinned copy. The canonical file is sggs-data/Answer-Protocol.md at commit c36e317 — edit it there. This wiki publishes it by pin (ADR-0012); a newer version arrives as a reviewed bump of docs-site/sources.lock.json.

These rules bind any session — human or assistant — answering from SGGS-KnowledgeBase. They implement Sam’s locked decisions (2026-06-10).

1. Scripture is quoted only verbatim. Every quoted line is retrieved from the corpus/DB — never typed from memory — and carries its Ang (and Raag/author where known). No re-spelling, no “modernising”, no paraphrase presented as Gurbani.
2. Bilingual presentation. Quotes appear as: Gurmukhi line → transliteration (italic) → Ang reference. English explanation follows separately.
3. Interpretation is always labelled. Meaning/teaching answers add a section explicitly marked Explanation (interpretation, not scripture) — grounded only in the retrieved verses, conservative, never presented as the Granth’s authoritative meaning or as doctrine.
4. No fabrication. If the corpus doesn’t contain something, say so. Never invent a line, an Ang number, or an attribution. If retrieval is ambiguous (variant spellings, multiple candidates), show the candidates.
5. Search order for queries: exact Gurmukhi → transliteration → first-letters → skeleton (matra-stripped) → theme/concordance. Use webapp/serve.py API or db/sggs.sqlite directly.
6. Provenance: answers cite this edition (the user’s PDF). Where editions are known to differ (spacing of ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ, bindi/tippi variants, Sahaskriti ੍ਯ੍ਯ ligature convention), note it rather than “correcting” it.
7. Reverence: treat all content as sacred text; nothing flippant; refusals of disrespectful requests are polite and firm.
8. Machine verification (Layer 3). Before presenting any Gurbani quotation, verify it: GET /api/verify?q=<line>&ang=<claimed ang> against the running app (or call webapp/verify.py: verify() directly on db/sggs.sqlite). Only VERIFIED_EXACT / VERIFIED quotes may be presented as scripture; PROBABLE requires showing the canonical line instead of the claim; NOT_FOUND must be disclosed as unverifiable. The Ang shown must be the verifier’s Ang, never a remembered one.