# GROK’it Baton: Bring the Problem

Version 1.0 · https://grokit.liftthesparks.com/batons · License: MIT

**Purpose:** Turn a mess into a problem someone can actually work on, before anyone tries to fix it.

## How to use this baton
- **Printed, or alone:** work down the page with a pen. Every question can be answered without a computer.
- **With an AI (works with any capable AI):** paste this whole baton first, then your situation, and say: "Follow this baton. Ask me the questions one at a time. Mark everything KNOWN, ASSUMED or UNKNOWN. Stop at every human gate and wait for me."
- **With another person:** hand them this page and your answers. They should be able to pick up exactly where you are.

The baton does the organizing. You keep the decisions.

## Questions
1. What did you expect to happen?
2. What happened instead? Write exactly what you see, word for word if there is an error.
3. When did it last work? When did you first notice it didn't?
4. What changed in between? Anything: an update, a move, a new person, a password, a bill.
5. What have you already tried, and what did each try do?
6. What does working look like? How will you know it's fixed?

## Method
1. Write the symptom in one sentence: "I expected X, and Y happened."
2. List what you can see directly. Separate it from what someone told you.
3. Collect what exists: screenshots, error text, emails, dates, links.
4. Name the one question that, answered, would tell you the most.

## Source discipline
- Every claim gets a mark: **KNOWN** (a record or test shows it), **ASSUMED** (believed, not shown), **UNKNOWN** (nobody knows yet).
- A record beats a memory. A memory beats a guess. Say which one you are using.
- Write down where each source lives, so someone else can go look.

## Conflict discipline
- When two sources disagree, write both down side by side. Do not quietly pick one.
- The newer, more direct record usually wins, but say that you chose and why.
- If the conflict changes what happens next, it goes to a human gate.

## Human decision gates
- Whether to share anything private with a helper. Never passwords, codes or account numbers.
- Whether to spend money or call in paid help.

## Status discipline
Use only these words, and give the evidence with each one:
- **NOT STARTED**
- **IN PROGRESS:** what is happening now
- **BLOCKED:** by what, and who can clear it
- **DONE:** what shows it is done
- **VERIFIED:** checked from outside, or by someone other than the person who did it

Done is not verified. A command that ran is not a result.

**Done when: one sentence of symptom, a list of what you can see, a list of what exists, and the next question.**

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