The question and its sources

A sounding starts from one question and the material that bears on it. sounding open writes both into question.md, and every round’s session starts from that file.

One question

A sounding works one question, whose answer the operator decides before any work the answer implies begins. An item in millpond sometimes asks one: whether to take a major release, or how to settle what a meeting left open. An item that needs no judgment goes to a worktree and becomes a change. An item that asks a question goes to a sounding (millpond’s items).

Ways in

• An item millpond sends. millpond’s send takes a sounding as its target, and opens it with the item’s signals and the captures they came from as its sources.
• /sound <question> in any Claude Code session. The sounding opens while that session goes on with its own work.
• A key in another tool’s herdr plugin, such as headwater’s on a release that needs judgment, with the release’s brief as the source.
• crew’s planner and design agent, which call sounding open for an item that asks a question, as crew calls millpond.

Each of them calls sounding open, so a sounding is the same whichever way it began. Where questions come from sets out which ways in each setup has.

question.md

sounding open writes the question and its sources:

• the item’s signals, each with its verbatim excerpt (113);
• the captures those signals came from, which point at the raw material;
• any earlier conclusion on the subject.

A question opened with /sound carries the sources it names, such as the transcript of the meeting that left a decision open.

An earlier conclusion is one the operator accepted. Naming it among the sources starts the session from what the operator already decided on the subject.

Each round’s question

The question grows from round to round. When the operator answers a conclusion with go on, the conclusion moves to rounds/<n>.md, and the operator’s notes join the next session’s question (Deciding a conclusion).

The Claude Code plugin’s start hook hands each round’s session its question, its sources and its earlier rounds, whichever surface started the round (The operator’s surfaces).