Definition
Plain language
Sorting questions up front by whether they can even be answered.
As stated in the literature
An explicit pre-decision classification step instructing the model to label a query's resolvability before selecting an action, converting latent knowledge into a decision-relevant token.
Also called: triage instructions, triage step
Why it matters: Forcing a system to state whether a question is answerable before it answers turns knowledge it already has into an actual decision, rather than letting it slide straight into a confident guess.
For example, before answering, a system first labels the question as "can be looked up," "needs a tool," or "nobody can know this," and only then decides what to do.
Heard on the show
“We're not going to ask a human to triage them.”Episode 014 — Why a Constrained Pipeline Beat a Full Coding Agent at Finding Bugs 30-to-1