An ask reads at a glance on the phone: a headline, a summary and its points, the rest in a note (issues 383 and 639)

The operator would not read the Telegram ask for ADR 0343: thirty plain lines, every clause on one, no bold,
no summary. A settings proposal was the same wall of text, its values masked so the approval was blind.

- messenger: an ask's message is the asker's headline and explanation alone; who asked and when, what each
  answer does, the expiry, where else it is answered and the asker's Details travel as the message's note
  (asks.Message.Note). Answered, the message is one line, "You chose Approve at 16:06 on Telegram ·
  <headline>". An explanation that does not read at a glance (asks.Glance) is shown and logged. On a kind
  that proves who answers, an ask's values are shown whole (asks.Ask.Whole), held to the secret rule alone
  (from the earlier work on issue 383, #178).
- telegram: every message in HTML, never reworded: the title bold, a key line monospace, the note apart in
  a collapsed blockquote; markup escaped. A tap is compared by its words, whitespace aside, and a message
  shown before is still compared by the digest it was kept under.
- desk-channel: the note follows the body.
- mesh-knowledge: a record that needs the operator carries a brief (headline, summary, at most three
  points), the 30th per-record rule; its ask shows the brief and never the clauses. An ask made before is
  composed again as it was asked (form), so its warrant still holds.
- claude-code: an instructions proposal's explanation is one summary line (the proposer's, or the
  module's), its text in the Details; a question's context is at most 300 characters and its recommendation
  one point. Older proposals and questions keep their form.

The SDK is pinned at mesh-sdk 9588871 (fix/639-an-ask-reads-at-a-glance), which adds Message.Note and
asks.Glance.

modules/claude-code/cmd/claude-code/questions.go

@@ -69,9 +69,9 @@ const (
 // The bounds of what a question says.
 const (
 	FewestQuestionOptions = 2
-	MostContextBytes      = 1500
+	MostContextBytes      = asks.SummaryLength
 	MostMeansBytes        = 200
-	MostWhyBytes          = 300
+	MostWhyBytes          = 120
 	MostOnExpiryBytes     = 200
 )
 
@@ -131,6 +131,8 @@ type Question struct {
 	From     string           `json:"from"`
 	At       time.Time        `json:"at"`
 	Expires  time.Time        `json:"expires"`
+	// Form is how its ask is composed (AskGlance since novox/hq issue 639), so the answer is held to the ask asked.
+	Form int `json:"form,omitempty"`
 	// Asked is empty once the ask was published, or says why it was not; nothing composes from it.
 	Asked string `json:"asked,omitempty"`
 	// Ended is the router's word that the ask ended without a choice, as heard on the decided subject: a refused ask
@@ -160,8 +162,41 @@ func (q Question) Act(option string) asks.Act {
 	return act
 }
 
-// Ask is the ask for a question, composed from it alone.
+// Ask is the ask for a question, composed from it alone, in the form it was asked in.
 func (q Question) Ask() asks.Ask {
+	if q.Form == AskGlance {
+		return q.glanceAsk()
+	}
+	return q.listedAsk()
+}
+
+// glanceAsk is the question read at a glance on the phone (novox/hq issue 639): its context, then the recommended
+// answer and why as its one point; who asked and what the answer does are its Details.
+func (q Question) glanceAsk() asks.Ask {
+	explanation := strings.TrimSpace(q.Context)
+	if rec, ok := q.recommended(); ok {
+		explanation += fmt.Sprintf("\n• Recommended: %s, because %s.", rec.Label, strings.TrimRight(strings.TrimSpace(q.Why), "."))
+	}
+	details := fmt.Sprintf("Asked by the agent session %s on %s through the claude-code module, at %s UTC. Your answer is told "+
+		"to that session; it performs nothing by itself.", q.By, q.From, q.At.UTC().Format("15:04 on 2 Jan"))
+	return q.withOptions(asks.Ask{ID: q.ID, Headline: q.Headline, Explanation: explanation, Details: details})
+}
+
+func (q Question) withOptions(a asks.Ask) asks.Ask {
+	a.Who, a.Expires, a.OnExpiry = asks.Operator, q.Expires, q.OnExpiry
+	for _, o := range q.Options {
+		does := o.Means
+		if o.Recommended {
+			does = "Recommended. " + does
+		}
+		binds, _ := asks.ActDigest(q.Act(o.ID))
+		a.Options = append(a.Options, asks.Option{ID: o.ID, Label: o.Label, Does: does, Level: asks.Approve, Binds: binds})
+	}
+	return a
+}
+
+// listedAsk is the ask as it was composed before issue 639: composed only to hold the answer to a question asked then.
+func (q Question) listedAsk() asks.Ask {
 	var b strings.Builder
 	b.WriteString(strings.TrimSpace(q.Context))
 	if rec, ok := q.recommended(); ok {
@@ -199,8 +234,10 @@ func QuestionProblem(q Question) string {
 	switch {
 	case strings.TrimSpace(q.Context) == "":
 		add("it gives no context: say in plain words what the operator decides and why it matters")
-	case len(q.Context) > MostContextBytes:
-		add("its context is %d bytes, more than the %d a phone shows in one glance", len(q.Context), MostContextBytes)
+	case len([]rune(q.Context)) > MostContextBytes:
+		add("its context is %d characters, more than the %d a phone shows in one glance", len([]rune(q.Context)), MostContextBytes)
+	case strings.Contains(strings.TrimSpace(q.Context), "\n"):
+		add("its context is more than one line: a phone shows it at a glance as one short paragraph")
 	}
 	if n := len(q.Options); n < FewestQuestionOptions || n > asks.MostOptions {
 		add("it offers %d options; a question offers %d to %d", n, FewestQuestionOptions, asks.MostOptions)
@@ -322,7 +359,7 @@ func AskQuestion(p Paths, in QuestionInput, store QuestionStore, bus AskBus, now
 	}
 	q := Question{ID: newQuestionID(), Headline: strings.TrimSpace(in.Headline), Context: strings.TrimSpace(in.Context),
 		Why: strings.TrimSpace(in.Why), OnExpiry: strings.TrimSpace(in.OnExpiry), By: by, From: p.Node, At: now.UTC(),
-		Expires: now.UTC().Add(life)}
+		Expires: now.UTC().Add(life), Form: AskGlance}
 	for i, o := range in.Options {
 		q.Options = append(q.Options, QuestionOption{ID: fmt.Sprintf("o%d", i+1), Label: strings.TrimSpace(o.Label),
 			Means: strings.TrimSpace(o.Means), Recommended: o.Recommended})