# Defining and editing the method by hand

Not every operator hands over a usable history, and every operator eventually changes how they price.
This pillar builds or edits the method directly with the operator, by conversation, producing the same
captured method that learning from history produces. A method built this way and a method learned from
artifacts are indistinguishable to anything downstream — same kind of thing, same captured form.

## What the operator must be able to express

Building by hand means letting the operator state, in their own terms, the same four things a
derivation recovers:

- **A priceable thing** — something they charge for, named the way they name it.
- **How it is quantified** — whether its quantity comes from a measurement they take, a count they
  enter, or is simply one of a thing.
- **How it is priced** — the rule that turns its quantity into a line price, in whatever form their
  pricing takes (a rate, a tier, a price break, a fixed amount, or otherwise).
- **How lines roll up** — the adjustments and taxes they apply above the lines, in the order they
  apply them, and the dials those adjustments use (a markup percentage, a day rate, a tax rate).

There is no fixed set of fields to fill and no form to complete. Capture what the operator's method
contains; if their pricing for one thing needs something another thing's does not, the method holds
both. Forcing every entry into the same template is the same defect here as it is when learning from
history.

## Standing rule vs per-job judgement

Classify each thing here too (the rule and why it matters are in [../SKILL.md](../SKILL.md)). On this
path the signal is simplest: **ask the operator directly** whether each thing is priced the same way
every time or decided per job.

## A hand-defined item is immediately quotable; a hand-edited rule takes effect

The point of building by hand is that it works at once. A priceable thing the operator just defined is
available to a quote with no further step, and a rule the operator just changed governs the next quote
that uses it. An edit that is recorded but does not change what the next quote does is not an edit.

## Editing is a first-class path, not a fallback

Editing an existing method — adding a thing, retiring one, changing a rate or a roll-up step — runs
through this pillar, and through [maintenance.md](maintenance.md) for preserving prior adjustments and
re-verifying. A manual edit must survive a later re-learn from history; see maintenance.
