Balford metalworking engineering answers

Answer a metalworking engineering or sourcing question from Balford's own published engineering material. Covers fine blanking and thinning / ironing deep drawing as focus processes, plus progressive and transfer dies, precision stamping, sheet metal, CNC, brazing, annealing, plating, tolerances, DFM and RFQ preparation. Returns a written answer with numbered citations plus the source pages. Use this for 'how do I', 'what is', 'which process fits', or 'what do you need for an RFQ' questions. It will not quote a price, a lead-time guarantee, a certification Balford does not hold, or anything from a customer drawing. Answers are assembled from Balford's own published engineering material and cite the page each claim came from. Nothing is quoted that is not already public on balford.net. This is not a quotation, a certification claim, or a dimensional acceptance.

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "question": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The engineering or sourcing question, in plain language. Max 600 characters.",
      "maxLength": 600
    },
    "lang": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "BCP-47 language tag for the question, for the review log. Defaults to 'en'."
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "question"
  ]
}

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "answer": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The answer, with [[n]] citation markers."
    },
    "next": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The practical next step Balford recommends."
    },
    "mode": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "'rag' when a language model wrote the answer from retrieved passages; 'retrieval' when the model was unavailable or the budget was spent, and the answer is quoted extractively from the strongest passage."
    },
    "quality": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "How well Balford's published material covers the question: strong, thin, or none."
    },
    "sources": {
      "type": "array",
      "description": "The published balford.net pages the answer was retrieved from, in citation order.",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "n": {
            "type": "integer",
            "description": "Citation marker used in the answer text as [[n]]."
          },
          "title": {
            "type": "string"
          },
          "url": {
            "type": "string",
            "description": "Canonical URL of the cited page."
          },
          "excerpt": {
            "type": "string",
            "description": "The passage text that was retrieved, truncated."
          },
          "score": {
            "type": "number"
          },
          "coverage": {
            "type": "number"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "passages_searched": {
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "degraded_reason": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "guard_violations": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "description": "Claims the code-level boundary removed before the answer was returned."
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "answer",
    "next",
    "mode",
    "quality",
    "sources",
    "passages_searched"
  ]
}

Retrieve the passages of Balford's published engineering material that match a query, without writing an answer. Use this to check what Balford has actually published on a topic, to gather source URLs for a citation, or to ground your own reasoning. Costs no model tokens. Answers are assembled from Balford's own published engineering material and cite the page each claim came from. Nothing is quoted that is not already public on balford.net. This is not a quotation, a certification claim, or a dimensional acceptance.

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Search terms, e.g. 'thinning deep drawing 0.35 mm wall' or 'PPAP level 3'."
    },
    "limit": {
      "type": "integer",
      "description": "Maximum number of passages to return. Default 6, maximum 12.",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 12
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "query"
  ]
}

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "quality": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "strong, thin, or none — how well the material covers the query."
    },
    "passages_searched": {
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "results": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "title": {
            "type": "string"
          },
          "url": {
            "type": "string"
          },
          "excerpt": {
            "type": "string"
          },
          "score": {
            "type": "number"
          },
          "coverage": {
            "type": "number"
          }
        },
        "required": [
          "title",
          "url",
          "excerpt",
          "score",
          "coverage"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "query",
    "quality",
    "passages_searched",
    "results"
  ]
}

List the canonical engineering questions Balford's knowledge base is built around, grouped by process family, with the URL of the answer page for each. Use this to find the right published answer before asking a free-form question, or to see whether a topic is covered at all. Costs no model tokens.

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "category": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Optional. Return only one process family, matched case-insensitively against the family title (e.g. 'fine blanking', 'deep drawing'). Omit to return every family."
    }
  }
}

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "total": {
      "type": "integer",
      "description": "Number of published canonical questions returned."
    },
    "categories": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "title": {
            "type": "string"
          },
          "count": {
            "type": "integer"
          },
          "questions": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
              "type": "object",
              "properties": {
                "question": {
                  "type": "string"
                },
                "url": {
                  "type": "string"
                },
                "quality": {
                  "type": "string"
                }
              },
              "required": [
                "question",
                "url"
              ]
            }
          }
        },
        "required": [
          "title",
          "count",
          "questions"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "total",
    "categories"
  ]
}