Status: green

Verbs: decide

Use this when a script has to take one branch or another and the thing that decides is the meaning of some text. A support desk wants the messages that ask for money back to go to the refunds queue. decide answers the question and sets the exit code, so the branch is an ordinary shell if.

set -euo pipefail

asks_for_money_back() {
  thinkthen decide 'Does the customer ask for money back?' \
    --quiet --replay recording/
}

if asks_for_money_back < message.txt
then
  printf 'refunds\n'
else
  printf 'normal\n'
fi | mustmatch "refunds"

message.txt is one customer message that asks for a refund in plain words. question.txt is one customer message that asks a product question and mentions no money.

recording/thinkthen.jsonl holds the answers of the two exchanges this page replays, so every command here runs with no network and no key. record.sh made them once through sdlc/scripts/live. Every probability on this page is illustrative.

--quiet drops the answer from standard output, so the command reads like test and needs no redirect. The product question takes the else.

set -euo pipefail

asks_for_money_back() {
  thinkthen decide 'Does the customer ask for money back?' \
    --quiet --replay recording/
}

if asks_for_money_back < question.txt
then
  printf 'refunds\n'
else
  printf 'normal\n'
fi | mustmatch "normal"

decide --lines exits 0 when its record run completes without a partial or whole-run failure. Its exit code does not say whether any record answered yes. Count the printed answers when the action depends on them.

set -euo pipefail

{
  cat message.txt
  cat question.txt
} | thinkthen decide 'Does the customer ask for money back?' \
      --lines --replay recording/ |
  jq -s 'map(select(. == true)) | length' |
  mustmatch "1"

• An if has two branches, and decide has five outcomes. Exit 0 is yes, 1 is no, 3 is not sure, 4 is a backend failure and 5 is a local one. An else swallows the last three and routes a failed request to the normal queue. How to gate a risky command and fail closed reads all five with case.
• Exit 1 is a no. Under set -e a bare thinkthen decide ... ends the script on it. Put the command in an if, a case, or a && rc=0 || rc=$? list.
• A decide record run exits 0 when it completes without a partial or whole-run failure, even when every record answers no. Test the printed values, as the count above does. filter plus a count is the same gate when only passing records should remain.
• Exit 2 is a usage error, and it goes out before any request. --quiet beside --details is one, because the gate wants no output and the audit wants the object.

set -euo pipefail

thinkthen decide 'Does the customer ask for money back?' \
  --quiet --details --replay recording/ < message.txt \
  >/dev/null 2>&1 && bad=0 || bad=$?
printf 'bad=%s\n' "$bad" | mustmatch "bad=2"

• The model's word never runs anything. The if is code. decide moved the exit code and nothing else.
• A single cut never says the model is sure. With no threshold the cut is 0.5 and nothing is ever not sure, so a borderline message lands in one of the two queues with no sign that it was close. A probability of 0.48 and one of 0.02 both come back as a no.

• How to gate a risky command and fail closed adds the band, the audit row, and the failure branches.
• How to branch on a label with choose and case is the same shape over more than two queues.
• How to test a script with no network makes a recording like the one this page replays.