Read rhetorical questions in agent explanations

You reach a question mark in an agent's explanation and begin composing an answer. But the agent is still explaining. Farther down, a quiet sentence ending with a period asks you to choose. Which sentence actually hands you a turn?

Read for the response being sought, rather than treating punctuation as a demand. Here, Jane Doe and every passage she reads are invented. The passages stay on the page; no described action is carried out. The .md extension has a separate explanation.

The agent keeps the turn

Consider this invented explanation addressed to Jane Doe:

What would a doorway be without somewhere to enter? The doorway in this passage matters because it leads into the garden. I am using it to describe arrival. Jane Doe, which place does the next passage describe?

The opening asks something whose answer the explanation treats as already apparent: a doorway with nowhere to enter would lack the purpose being emphasized. Try that implied answer silently. It carries the thought into the next sentence, where the agent continues discussing arrival.

Jane Doe is addressed by the passage as a whole. Being addressed does not require a contribution at every sentence. At the first question mark, the agent keeps the turn and develops its thought. At the last question mark, it leaves a place for Jane Doe to name.

Look at what would be missing without her response. The explanation of the doorway is already there. The place described in the next passage is still being requested. These are different response expectations within the same short passage.

Treat the implied answer as part of the agent's emphasis. Jane Doe has neither agreed with that thought nor been asked to defend the doorway comparison. Her turn begins where the passage asks for something it has left her to supply.

The reader has information to supply

Compare a different invented passage:

Jane Doe, what lies beyond the doorway in your passage? I cannot tell whether the passage names a garden or a hall.

Here, the question leaves information missing. The agent says it cannot tell which place the passage names. Reading an implied answer into the question would fill that missing information on Jane Doe's behalf.

The earlier doorway question made a point about entering. This question asks about a particular passage Jane Doe has. Its wording makes room for her contribution instead of carrying the explanation onward by itself.

Keep that contrast in view without answering either invented passage. You are identifying where a response belongs. Neither the presence of a name nor a question mark settles that alone; the requested contribution does.

These examples use quoted prose. Another way to enclose text appears in this account of Markdown code blocks. The response expectation here comes from the sentences, whatever encloses them.

A period can hand over the decision

Now read this invented explanation:

Why hurry past the garden when arrival is the subject? The garden gives arrival a place in the passage. Jane Doe, choose whether the explanation should dwell on the garden or move into the hall.

The first sentence emphasizes staying with the garden. Its implied answer is that hurrying past would work against the stated subject. The last sentence explicitly leaves a decision with Jane Doe. It ends with a period.

Distinguish the thought being urged from the choice being requested. Jane Doe can recognize the emphasis without having made the choice. Conversely, answering the emphatic question in her head does not settle what the final sentence asks her to decide.

This is where reading only the punctuation would misplace her turn. The question mark belongs to the continuing explanation. The sentence ending with a period hands over the decision. Her attention belongs on the requested choice, with the earlier emphasis still understood as part of the explanation.

Keep the definite request in view

Some wording leaves its intent open. Imagine the passage ends with both of these sentences:

Could the hall come first? Jane Doe, name the place described in the final passage.

The first sentence might introduce a thought the agent intends to explore, or it might seek Jane Doe's decision. These words alone leave that intent unclear. Allow both readings to remain possible without assigning Jane Doe a definite request there.

The second sentence does make a definite request. Jane Doe is being asked to name a place. Its response expectation remains readable even though the preceding question is uncertain. Do not let that uncertainty spread to the separate request, or let the definite request settle the uncertain sentence retroactively.

If you keep these passages in separate files, naming Markdown files discusses their names. Here, keep your attention on where each passage leaves the next contribution.

Finish with the turn assignment the wording supports. In the first passage, the agent carries the doorway thought onward and asks Jane Doe for a place. In the garden passage, it carries its emphasis onward and leaves her a decision. Jane Doe's next contribution belongs to that definite request; an emphatic sentence has not demanded an answer merely by wearing a question mark.

Where Sashmark fits

Sashmark's present state is in development; its planned desktop v1 pairs text editing with reading Markdown. AI agents write elsewhere; the app has no internal AI.