ask-falls-back-to-raw-search
IN premise
When LLM synthesis fails for any reason (timeout, missing CLI, non-zero exit), `ask()` returns the raw FTS5 search results as fallback.
Summary
If the LLM-powered answer generation breaks for any reason, the system still returns useful results by falling back to plain full-text search. This means users always get something back from a query, even when the AI layer is unavailable, though the results will be unprocessed search matches rather than a synthesized answer.
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- ask-has-tiered-query-modes — The ask module supports tiered query modes with graceful degradation: full LLM synthesis with a bounded 3-iteration tool loop, no-synth mode that bypasses the LLM entirely, and automatic fallback from LLM failure to raw FTS5 search results.
Details
| Source | entries/2026/04/29/reasons_lib-ask.md |