Ask is the front door of your organization's Palanor. One field: *What are you watching for?* Write a sentence in your own words. You can also start from the Ask row at the top of your dashboard: type there and press Enter, and Ask opens with your question already being read. Numen reads it against your business profile and the lattice, then proposes what it should become.
The five shapes
Everything Palanor builds is one of five things.
- Signal — one series answers the question. Follow it and it joins Signal Watch.
- Study — a question held open over time: composed signals, a digest cadence, alerts on sharp moves.
- Scenario — a claim about the world with a horizon, scored against the lattice as signals move.
- Futures Frame — two uncertainties (or one uncertainty and one decision you own) crossed into four futures the strategy must survive.
- Report — an answer by a date: a branded, exportable edition.
When you ask for a list of firms, funds or deals ("AI startups in Texas that raised over $5 million this year", "venture firms in Colorado"), Numen opens a Screen instead: the Entity Screener with the filters already set. Numen can only use filters the screener has, and the card lists any part of the question it left out. See *Entity Screener*.
What Numen does with your sentence
Numen picks one shape and says which words decided it — "you said *keep an eye on*, which is ongoing; that is a Study." It names three to five signals it would watch whatever the shape, each with a reason, and fills in the first draft of the thing itself: a Study's question and cadence, a Scenario's working name and hypothesis, a Frame's two axes and four futures, a Report's edition and starting text.
Numen proposes; you decide. The button opens the shape on its review step with the draft already in place, never on a blank form. Under it, two or three quieter alternatives say how the same question would read as a different shape. Tap one to take that path instead.
Who can build
Owners, admins and researchers can open any shape. Owners and admins follow signals for the organization. Anyone can open a Screen. Everyone else sees the recommendation and the signals, and can read them in Signal Watch.
Where Ask lives
A new organization lands on Ask until it has built three things; after that the dashboard takes over, and Ask stays one tap away from the Numen panel. Each read costs a few Numen credits from the organization's monthly pool.