In 30 seconds

Facts describe what is true. Instructions describe what to do. Keep them apart. They change at different speeds, are owned by different people, and mixing them makes knowledge hard to maintain and easy to get wrong.

Why this comes up

Company knowledge often blends the two. A single paragraph might say "our standard lead time is three weeks, so promise customers four weeks to be safe." That is a fact (the lead time) glued to an instruction (what to promise).

When the lead time changes, someone has to remember the instruction depended on it. Mixed together, one gets updated and the other does not, and the guidance quietly becomes wrong.

Tell the two apart

  • A fact is a statement about the world: a price, a lead time, a capacity, a policy value. It is true or false and it changes when the world changes.
  • An instruction is a statement about action: what to do, when, and by whom. It is followed, and it changes when the way of working changes.

A quick test: could you check whether it is true (a fact), or does it tell someone to do something (an instruction)?

Keep facts in a maintained source with an owner, and keep instructions with the workflow that uses them. Where an instruction depends on a fact, make the dependency explicit rather than copying the fact into the instruction.

"Promise the customer the current lead time plus one week" is better than "promise four weeks," because it updates automatically when the lead time does.

Why this matters for AI

An AI knowledge system works far better when facts and instructions are separated. Facts can be retrieved as current information; instructions can guide behavior. When they are tangled, the AI may treat an outdated instruction as a fact, or repeat a fact as if it were still the rule.

A small example

A support script hard-coded a discount amount inside the steps agents followed. When the discount changed, half the scripts still quoted the old figure. Splitting the fact (the current discount, owned by sales) from the instruction (offer the current discount) meant one update fixed every script at once.

What this does not solve

Separating facts from instructions makes knowledge easier to maintain; it does not keep either one correct. Both still need owners and review. It removes a common source of silent errors, not the need for care.

Good enough to move on when

  • Facts and instructions are stored separately.
  • Facts have owners and review dates.
  • Instructions reference facts rather than copying them.
  • Changing a fact does not require editing many instructions.