---
name: "frame"
description: "Turn a request into a shared understanding before any plan or code: the intent, what is out of scope, the terms and the questions still open, at the depth the change's mode gives the frame step. Use when the mode reaches frame, when the owner says \"grill me\" or \"grill with docs\", and when a term is doing two jobs."
---

# Frame

Frame turns a request into a shared understanding of what is wanted before any plan or code exists: the intent, what is out of scope, the terms, and the questions still open. It runs where the change's mode reaches the frame step, at the depth the mode gives it, and alone when the owner asks for it by name: "grill me", "grill with docs", or a term doing two jobs, which it names in one line with the sharper word it proposes. It also runs mid-work, at any step, the moment scope, intent or a term turns out unclear: that ambiguity is put to the owner at the inline depth, never guessed through. Asked for by name, or loaded by a start, with no change open, it runs at the written depth, its result stays in the reply, and it writes no file. It reads the settled decisions first, in the repository's decision home and the change's record, and reopens none of them. It never plans and never builds: what is built, and in which order, is the plan step's. Facts are yours to look up first, decisions the owner's.

## The method

Name the intent, and find the one consequential question the request leaves open, if there is one. A term the request leaves unclear is such a question: put it to the owner, never settle it by your own reading. Ask it with your recommended answer and wait.

Read the repository's documents before the first question: its decision home, its glossary (the repository's own, or `GLOSSARY.md` where it keeps none) and the records of earlier changes in the same area, so that no question asks what they already settle.

Where the frame interviews the owner, run the interview in [references/interview.md](references/interview.md) to its end: every behaviour the request leaves open goes to the owner, each with your recommended answer, and none is settled on your own.

## When asking cannot settle a question

Two kinds of question are answered by work rather than by asking, and each has its page, read only when one arises:

- A question that waits on a fact the repository does not hold, which primary sources must answer: [references/research.md](references/research.md).
- A question only trying can answer, whether a logic or state model feels right or what a screen should look like, or a design with no precedent whose shape is not chosen yet: [references/prototype.md](references/prototype.md).

## Handoff

Consumes: the request and the change record's front matter (its mode and why); at the written depth, the repository's decision home, its glossary and the records of earlier changes in the same area
Produces: the change record's frame section in .greenline/ledger/<id>.md, one line at the inline depth, and at the written depth the confirmed restatement, its out-of-scope list, the settled terms and any open question; the reply alone when no change is open
Next: the next step of the change's mode