Ask and answer questions on a board

The most valuable thing on a board is often the thing nobody knows. Staves keeps those as questions attached to the job they concern, rather than letting an agent guess.

Where questions come from

The agent raises them when the code cannot tell it something — whether a part-delivered order is held or part-paid, what happens to a running lookup when someone changes their mind. A good description has questions in it; a description with none usually means something was invented.

You raise them on any job, when you read something that does not match how the work really goes.

Answering

Answer in place and the answer stays attached to the job:

answer the question about part-delivered orders: they are held, and the supplier is told the same day

An answered question becomes part of the description rather than disappearing. Six months later the board says both what happens and that somebody decided it.

Comments, and picking them up

Comments are the other half. You leave them on the board, in the browser; the agent reads them as a work list:

what did I leave on the board?

staves_comments returns them, and the agent replies in place with staves_comment rather than in chat — so the discussion stays where the work is. It can also propose changes from them, which you accept or refuse.

Why not just fix it

Because a question is evidence. “Nobody knows what happens to a part-delivered order” is a finding about the business, not about the board — and it is usually worth more than the answer you would have guessed.