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← Garden Patch Home · Form Definitions

• is_a::[[Form Type]]
• has_status::[[Seed Stage]]
• in_domain::[[Deep Context Architecture]]
• in_precinct::[[Garden Precinct]]

Inquiry Form

Core question: “What should we think about X, and how would we find out?”

A thesis-driven investigation that marshals existing evidence, proposes hypotheses, and directs specific questions at specific people or groups. Distinguished from a gloss (which interprets existing sources) by being forward-looking rather than retrospective.

Inquiries are the primary generative form: their hypotheses, if tested, produce cases; their parallels, if validated, become patterns; their syntheses, if completed, become references. An inquiry may be resolved (producing other nodes) or persist as an open research thread.

Structural Contract

An inquiry form requires:

• Research question — Clear framing of what’s being investigated.
• Current state — What’s known, what hypotheses exist, what evidence has been gathered.
• Open questions — Specific, answerable questions. Not vague wonderings.
• Sources — Evidence and references marshaled so far.
• Relations — Connections to nodes the inquiry draws on or may produce.

Optional: Directed questions using the directed_at:: predicate to mark questions requiring a specific person’s judgment. These are boundary markers — places where the system recognizes it has reached the limit of what it can resolve without human input.

Naming heuristic: scope of investigation + what’s being determined.

Typical Predicates

• is_a::[\[\[Inquiry Form\]\]](Inquiry%20Form.html)
• has_status::[\[\[Seed Stage\]\]](Seed%20Stage.html) or [\[\[Growing Stage\]\]](Growing%20Stage.html)
• in_domain::[\[\[Deep Context Architecture\]\]](../domains/Deep%20Context%20Architecture.html)
• directed_at::[\[\[Person Name\]\]↑](../NODES.html#:~:text=Person%20Name) — flags questions for specific people
• extracted_from::[\[\[Research Note\]\]↑](../NODES.html#:~:text=Research%20Note) — provenance
• extends::[\[\[Related Form\]\]↑](../NODES.html#:~:text=Related%20Form) — applies a concept to new domain
• relates_to::[\[\[Gloss Form\]\]](Gloss%20Form.html), [\[\[Pattern Form\]\]](Pattern%20Form.html)

Exemplars

• [[Compound Node Meeting Structure]]↑ — directed questions about meeting compound node design
• [[Personal Knowledge Management Method Adoption for Vault Architecture]]↑ — comparative inquiry across personal knowledge management methods
• [[Vault-Wide Compound Node Adoption]]↑ — investigation with resolved structure and remaining questions

Category

Generative form — drives the creation of new knowledge by posing questions.

Sources

Definition from [[Deep Context as an Architecture for Captured Reasoning]], lines 107-108.

Relations

• relates_to::[[Gloss Form]] — inquiries that resolve interpretive questions produce glosses
• relates_to::[[Pattern Form]] — inquiries that identify recurring dynamics may crystallize into patterns
• relates_to::[[Decision Form]] — inquiries that require a choice produce decisions
• relates_to::[[Model Form]] — inquiries that map relationships produce models

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