D538 - Premises group by exact wording

Status: decided Date: 2026-09-04

questions --premises groups open questions only when they are the same sequence of words, with case, spacing and punctuation forgiven, and groups before --top truncates. A premise shared by many entries is written one way in the data, and a test gates that.

Why: a premise shared across a family is answerable by sampling a few of its functions, which a one-line-per-function list hides. Nothing reads what a question means, so a rule over words cannot fail silently. Grouping after truncation reports a fact about --top as a fact about the knowledge base.

Rejected:

• Grouping by similarity or classifying prose: fails silently where the differing word is the difference.
• Truncating before grouping: undercounts the heaviest premise with no visible sign.