# The procedure

Docs for TrueQuery 0.1.6. The seven steps TrueQuery holds your agent to on every build, in plain words.

`build`, `metric` and `init` follow all seven steps. `ask` and `analyze` change no pipeline code, so they look, ask, check their own queries and end with a receipt. `review` looks, checks and gives the receipt.

## 1. Look

It reads your repo, your definitions and your contracts first, and the schema if it can reach one read-only. Whatever it can find out, it doesn't ask.

## 2. Ask

Only questions it can't answer itself, and that change the result: at most 5, together, each with a suggested default. If nobody's there to answer, it uses the defaults and lists them as assumptions.

From a real build on the demo shop:

1. "What kind of lifetime value should the mart hold?" **Realized, to date (Recommended)**
2. "Should subscription revenue (MRR) count toward LTV, or only order revenue?" **Orders only, MRR shown apart (Recommended)**
3. "Which customers get a row?" **All customers, flagged (Recommended)**

## 3. Contract first

Before any code, it writes down what one row means, the keys, the columns and their units. See [Contracts](https://analytically.ai/truequery/docs/contracts.md).

## 4. Build

The code follows your stack and your conventions: dbt, Airflow, Dagster, plain SQL or pandas. Tests ship with it, and they have to run, not just be declared. Anything destructive, like rebuilding raw data, needs your confirmation first.

## 5. Check

It runs [the checker](https://analytically.ai/truequery/docs/checker.md) on what it wrote, fixes real findings and reports the rest.

## 6. Receipt

Every task ends by saying what was built, what was checked, what wasn't and why, what it assumed, and any conflicts. See [The receipt](https://analytically.ai/truequery/docs/receipt.md).

## 7. Remember

Your answers go into `DATA.md` and the contracts, so nobody is asked twice. They never go into rule settings: those are yours to change.