# Moments — rules that arrive when the work reaches a point

Part of the using-scribe skill. Read it when a line says a rule arrived *at* a
moment, when a reply is held for one read, when an action reached the wrong
moment or none, and when a line proposes mounting a rule.

## What a moment is

Most rules reach you by resemblance: what you are doing looks like what the
rule is about. A rule about WHEN — finishing, delivering, verifying,
reporting — resembles nothing said at that point, so resemblance misses it.
Such a rule is **mounted** on the moments of work it belongs to, and arrives
by lookup whenever an action reaches one. `list_moments` names them, each
with what is happening at it and the kinds of action that typically reach it:
`work.deliver` when work is sent beyond the place it was made, `work.finish`
when a piece of work is declared done, `reply.report` at the reply that ends a
turn, and so on. A named procedure is its own moment, `skill.<name>`, reached when it is
loaded.

Which ACTIONS reach a moment is the install's: one operator delivers with a
push, another with a deploy script. Shipped defaults cover the common ones,
and each install corrects them for itself.

## Reading a line that arrived at a moment

The line names the moment and the action that reached it — *"at work.deliver,
reached by `git push`"* — and the rule, with `get_rule(N)` to read it. Read it
as you would any rule that arrived beside your work: it binds just as hard,
and it came because of what you are doing now, not because of what you said.

The reply that ends a turn is a moment too. When a rule mounted at
`reply.report` has not been opened this session, the reply may be held once
with its name: open it, then send the reply — unchanged, if it already does
what the rule asks. The same rule is never held twice.

## When the moment is wrong — correct it in the session

A moment can fire on an action that is not that moment here, or an action can
plainly be a moment and fire nothing. Either way the fix is one call, and it
belongs in the session that noticed, not on a settings page:

- **An action reached the wrong moment** — the line names a moment that is not
  what you did: offer `unmap_action(tool, moment, match, reason)`.
- **An action was a moment and nothing arrived** — the operator ships with
  their own script, and nothing mounted on `work.deliver` came:
  offer `map_action(tool, moment, match, reason)`.

Offer it in one line, the way the operator would say it ("that deploy script
is a deliver and nothing fired — map it?"), and make it on their yes. The
correction lasts for every later session on the install; `list_moments` shows
what each action reaches now.

## When a line proposes a mount

A rule that keeps being opened just after the same moment, across several
sessions, probably belongs on that moment. A line says so, naming the rule,
the moment and how often. It is a question for the operator, not a change you
make: offer it in one line, and record their answer with
`judge_rule_moments` — `confirm` mounts the rule, `reject` with their reason
stops the question being asked again.

The same tool answers proposals from a pass over the rules
(`rules_to_mount`, `propose_rule_moments`, `rule_moment_proposals`): a pass
proposes, and only the operator's yes mounts. Writing a NEW rule is different
— its moments are part of writing it, and
[writing-records.md](writing-records.md) says how.