Verbs

Basalt has five verbs. Each maps to a chemical element. Each answers one question about your own work.

The Brief renders them in this canonical order — Implicit Thesis → Buried Insight → Drift → Contradiction → Connection — matching the reference Python implementation in reference/src/basalt/brief.py.

Order	Verb	Element	Question
I	Implicit Thesis	Na (Sodium)	What’s the through-line I keep returning to?
II	Buried Insight	Au (Gold)	What line did I write months ago that my current work keeps mining?
III	Drift	Hg (Mercury)	Which projects have changed meaning while I wasn’t looking?
IV	Contradiction	Cl (Chlorine)	Where am I disagreeing with myself?
V	Connection	C (Carbon)	Which notes are secretly the same idea?

Every verb is deterministic over an input vault — given the same notes, same config, same embeddings, you get the same findings. The algorithmic contract is in SPEC.md in the repository.