Ask Better Questions

It cannot read your mind. State your conditions and it answers precisely; leave them vague and all it can give you is a paragraph that would be true anywhere.

A good question has four things in it

You do not need all four every time, but you should know which one you are leaving out.

Element	Example
What you want it to do	“put this in a table”, “compare”, “work it out”, “write something I can show a customer”
Scope	“last month”, “the northern region”, “the R&D department”, “these three quotes”
Conditions	“excluding employees on probation”, “before tax”, “one page maximum”
The form you want	“three bullet points”, “Excel”, “a paragraph of 100 words or fewer”

Good ways to ask vs bad ways

Asking about a rule

Bad: What is the leave policy?

Good: I am a full-time employee with three years of service and I want to take 10 consecutive days of annual leave in August. How far in advance do I have to file? Will it affect my year-end bonus?

With the bad one, all it can do is summarise the whole policy. The good one goes straight at the three things you actually want to know.

Looking up numbers

Bad: How are sales doing?

Good: Put Q2 2026 revenue for the northern, central, and southern regions in a table, and mark the percentage change against Q1.

Asking it to produce something

Bad: Make me a deck.

Good: Make a 5-page PowerPoint reviewing Q2 sales. Put a bar chart of the three regions’ revenue on page 2, and list three action items for next quarter on the last page.

When you ask it to make a file, say which format you want. For how to specify each format, see the chapter Get the Files It Makes.

Changing something

Bad: This is no good, rewrite it.

Good: The tone is too formal — make it sound like something written for a colleague. The second paragraph is too long; cut it to two sentences.

Choosing who to ask

In the web app, think about who to ask before you ask:

• Not sure who it belongs to → pick 「大腦總管 Nova」(Nova, the Chief Brain). It works out which area the question belongs to, hands it to the right specialist Agent, and brings the answer back. You will see a small 「指派 → ○○」(Assigned → ○○) block in the reply.
• You already know which area it is → click that specialist Agent directly and save a hop.

In Discord, LINE, and Slack there is nothing to pick — your company has already decided which Agent that bot maps to.

When one sentence carries two questions from different areas (“how is annual leave calculated, and while you are at it give me last quarter’s sales”), splitting them into two questions gets you more accurate answers.

Following up and correcting it

Within one conversation it remembers what was said earlier, so:

• You do not have to repeat the background every time. Say “and what if they are part-time?”
• If an answer looks wrong, pointing at what is wrong works better than “do it again”: “you are quoting the 2025 version, I want this year’s”.
• Changing the format works the same way: “same content, as three bullet points”.

There are two situations where it forgets what came before and you have to give it the background again:

1. You switched to a different party in the left column of the web app — switching means starting over.
2. You refreshed the web page — the conversation on screen is cleared.

If you want to keep a long answer, copy it first, or ask it to produce a file (see the chapter Get the Files It Makes).

When it cannot answer

These are normal, not a fault:

Situation	How it shows up	What you can do
The company documents simply do not say	It says it could not find a relevant rule	Ask a person. Also report it to whoever maintains the documents
Those records are not open to this Agent	It says it has no information on that	Switch to Nova and ask again; if that still fails, ask IT
The question itself is ambiguous	It asks you a clarifying question back	Answer that one point; do not paste the original question again
It needs live system data (today’s stock, the current approval status)	It gives you an out-of-date or vague answer	Go and look in the original system
It calls for judgement and discretion (“can we make an exception this time”)	It gives you the rule but will not decide for you	Ask someone with the authority

These call for more caution:

• The answer sounds very certain but quotes no source.
• The numbers are so good they happen to be exactly what you were hoping for.
• The document name it quotes is one you have never heard of.

In all three cases, ask it to spell out the source: “which section of which document is this based on?”

A few phrasings you can use right now

• “List it in a table with these columns: ○○, ○○, ○○.”
• “Give me the conclusion in one sentence first, then three reasons that support it.”
• “Which parts of this did you infer, and which parts are stated explicitly in the document?”
• “If you do not have enough to go on, say so — do not guess.”
• “Say it again assuming I know nothing about this.”

How you know it worked

• The answer has concrete numbers, deadlines, or conditions in it, not a sentence like “handle it according to company policy”.
• You can see the document passage it quoted, and opening it lines up with the answer.
• You follow up and it picks up the thread from before.
• It gave you the form you asked for — a table when you said table, three points when you said three points.

Common problems

Symptom	Cause / fix
The answer is long, empty, and all generalities	The question was too broad. Add scope and conditions and ask again.
It keeps asking me questions back	Your request is ambiguous. Answer the one point it asked about; do not paste the original question again.
It misremembers what I said earlier	After a conversation runs long, the earlier part gets fuzzy. Restate the key conditions in a fresh sentence.
It remembers nothing after I switched Agents	That is normal — switching means starting over. Give it the background again.
The same question twice gives me two different answers	It generates from scratch each time, so the wording will vary. If the two conclusions differ, ask it for sources and go by the document.
The document it quotes is an old version	The document on the platform has not been updated. Go by your company’s official announcement, and report it to whoever maintains the documents.
I want to ask five things at once	Split them up. One at a time is far more accurate.