Ask a question. The ledger answers.
Spend, coverage, unit cost, a spike or a saving, in plain language. The plan that produced the answer travels with it, and what the ledger cannot answer is said rather than guessed.
Why did spend spike on the 21st?
2026-08-21 cost $395 more than a usual day
The spike came mainly from the Draft reply agent, with smaller amounts from ticket triage and unallocated spend.
- $349
- $39
- $7
Which agents cost more without improving outcomes?
Draft-reply agent has the highest quality-adjusted cost per outcome at $2.91
The spend covers five agents including Draft-reply at $2.91 per outcome, Triage at $0.19, Escalation summarizer at $0.08, and an Unallocated portion with no computable cost.
- $2.91
- $0.19
- —
Why Ask Valistry
The model writes the sentence. It never works out the number.
Two of the three layers a question passes through never run a model, and the one that does is given the result and nothing else.
Read · deterministic
The question becomes a plan
One measure, a grouping, up to three filters and a window, validated before anything runs. No model reads your question.
Run · deterministic
The plan becomes figures
The plan runs over the reconciled ledger in integer micros. Every figure, row and piece of evidence in the answer comes from this step.
Write · a model
The figures become a sentence
A model is handed the result and nothing else, and may only re-phrase it. What it writes is checked against the figures before you see it.
0 invented numbers
Computed, not generated
Every figure in an answer exists in the result the query returned. A sentence that introduces one is refused before you see it.
2 of 3 layers
Run without a model
Reading the question into a plan and running that plan over the ledger are both code with tests behind them.
1 plan per answer
Traceable
The plan, the window and the records travel with the answer, so a wrong answer is traced to a query and not to a mood.
The guardrails
What it will never do.
Each of these is a rule in the code, not a line in a prompt. A sentence that breaks one is dropped and the computed sentence stands in its place.
Never compute
Work out a figure of its own.
Every number is arithmetic in integer micros, checked by tests. The model is handed the result and may only re-phrase it.
Never conclude
Say what the figures do not.
Coverage is not called healthy, a window is not called representative, and a ratio the engine did not compute is dropped.
Never fill a gap
Guess at what is missing.
A period with nothing before it is refused rather than compared. An unmeasured outcome is named, never estimated.
Never reach
Read outside the asking organization.
Every query is scoped by tenant in the store's own interface, and no prompt or response content is read at all.
Where it belongs
An answer is only as good as what it is standing on.
Every cost tool now has an assistant. The question is what happens to the plan, the evidence and the next step once the sentence is written.
Handed a copy
An assistant that has been given your numbers can write a good sentence about them. Three things do not come with it.
- The plan stays behind, so a figure that looks wrong cannot be traced to the query that made it.
- The evidence class stays behind, so a rule reads like a reading and an unknown reads like a zero.
- The next step is in another tool, so the person who has the answer is not the person who can act on it.
Standing on the ledger
Ask Valistry is the ledger answering, on the screen where the decision is made.
- The plan travels with the answer: the measure, the grouping, the window and the records it ran over.
- The evidence class travels with the number, and what the ledger cannot answer is said rather than filled in.
- Every answer ends in the screen that acts on it: the explorer, the scenario, the rule or the policy.
The same records make the monthly report the finance leader signs, so the answer and the report can never disagree.
Move from dashboard hunting to decision-making.
A 30-minute demo on your own estate, or connect one source and ask the first question.
Every phase writes to the one ledger this answers from, which is the whole reason the answer holds.
Next: the sources it reads →