Ruling — Codenames: Duet

You asked

What does each player take, and what goes in the middle, before we begin?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Codenames: Duetbg-224037-en-1e

1. Sit on opposite sides [1]. 2. Lay out 25 random words in a 5 × 5 grid [1]. 3. Keep the 15 agent tiles within reach [1]. 4. Place the assassin tile dangerously close to the agents [1]. 5. Use 9 timer tokens and place them beside the grid [1]. 6. Hold the deck of key cards upright, take a random card from the middle, and place it in the stand [2]. 7. Place the key beside the words [2].

[1] RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook · p.2 · SIT OPPOSITE YOUR PARTNER. · LAY OUT 25 RANDOM WORDS. · KEEP THE 15 AGENT TILES WITHIN REACH. · AND THE ASSASSIN. · USE 9 TIMER TOKENS.

[2] RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook · p.3 · DRAW A RANDOM KEY CARD. · YOU SEE WHAT THEY MUST GUESS. · THEY SEE WHAT YOU MUST GUESS.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 282 ms · ask 5127 ms · total 7102 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 1682 ms · generation 5420 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 9, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "You can decide to give no more clues . When it is your turn to give a clue, you can say, 'Pass.' Your partner will give the clue for that turn and will be the clue-giver every turn for the rest of the game. For example, you might pass if your partner has only one word le/ft to guess and you have alr", "headingPath": "PASSING · WITH 3 OR MORE PLAYERS · LIMITED COMMUNICATION", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "You are both on the same team, but you must sit on opposite sides so that you each see a different side of the key card. Mix up the word cards, choose 25 at random, and lay them out in a 5 × 5 grid. Both players will use the green tiles to mark contacted agents, so keep them in the middle. 15 agent ", "headingPath": "SIT OPPOSITE YOUR PARTNER. · LAY OUT 25 RANDOM WORDS. · KEEP THE 15 AGENT TILES WITHIN REACH. · AND THE ASSASSIN. · USE 9 TIMER TOKENS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "BU BRICK ANT LEMONADE Your partner can also end the turn voluntarily by taking a timer token and placing it face down on their side of the table. KET BRICK ANT LEMONADE Ideally, they will guess every word for your clue, then take a token. However, they are not required to guess every word. They can ", "headingPath": "CAVE THEN THE GUESSER MAY MAKE MULTIPLE GUESSES. · BUCKET BRICK ON THE NEXT TURN, THE ROLES SWITCH. · LOCUST KEEP TAKING TURNS BEING THE CLUE-GIVER AND THE GUESSER.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "You see 9 words as green. When all of these are covered by agent tiles, say so. You have no words to give clues for, so your partner will be the clue-giver on all remaining turns. (Some are green from both sides and may have been guessed by you.) Once all green words from both sides of the key have ", "headingPath": "WHEN ALL 9 GREEN WORDS HAVE BEEN GUESSED, SAY SO. · IF YOU FIND ALL 15 AGENTS, YOU WIN. · IF YOU MEET THE ASSASSIN, YOU LOSE. · IF YOU RUN OUT OF TIMER TOKENS, YOU GET A SUDDEN DEATH TURN.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "BUCKET BUCKET CAVE CAVE LOCUST LOCUST IGLOO IGLOO CAESAR CAESAR BRICK BRICK FIDDLE FIDDLE CRAFT CRAFT POTTER POTTER LUNCH LUNCH ANT ANT COCONUT COCONUT VIRUS VIRUS PINE PINE LEMONADE LEMONADE STEAM STEAM STORM STORM POTATO POTATO RIFLE RIFLE BLADE BLADE RANCH RANCH MAKEUP MAKEUP PEW PEW SUN SUN RAIN", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Hold the deck of key cards upright, take a random card from the middle, and place it in the stand as shown below. (The arrows should be on the top and bo/ttom edges of the key.) Place the key beside the words. Each of you should see only your own side of the key. Your side of the key card shows what", "headingPath": "DRAW A RANDOM KEY CARD. · YOU SEE WHAT THEY MUST GUESS. · THEY SEE WHAT YOU MUST GUESS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "BUCKET BUCKET CAVE CAVE LOCUST LOCUST IGLOO IGLOO CAESAR CAESAR BRICK BRICK FIDDLE FIDDLE CRAFT CRAFT POTTER POTTER LUNCH LUNCH ANT ANT COCONUT COCONUT VIRUS VIRUS PINE PINE LEMONADE LEMONADE STEAM STEAM STORM STORM POTATO POTATO RIFLE RIFLE BLADE BLADE RANCH RANCH MAKEUP MAKEUP PEW PEW SUN SUN RAIN", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "All key cards are designed according to the diagram below. You can use this knowledge to your advantage. 3 of the GREEN words are also green on the other side. If you guess one of these words, your partner will cover it with a green tile, which means neither of you can guess it again, so you no long", "headingPath": "SECRETS OF THE KEY CARD · ZERO CLUE", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SIT OPPOSITE YOUR PARTNER. · LAY OUT 25 RANDOM WORDS. · KEEP THE 15 AGENT TILES WITHIN REACH. · AND THE ASSASSIN. · USE 9 TIMER TOKENS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "DRAW A RANDOM KEY CARD. · YOU SEE WHAT THEY MUST GUESS. · THEY SEE WHAT YOU MUST GUESS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 350}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 350 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 350 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 6, 2026 18:20

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	PASSING · WITH 3 OR MORE PLAYERS · LIMITED COMMUNICATION	p.9	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	SIT OPPOSITE YOUR PARTNER. · LAY OUT 25 RANDOM WORDS. · KEEP THE 15 AGENT TILES WITHIN REACH. · AND THE ASSASSIN. · USE 9 TIMER TOKENS.	p.2	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	CAVE THEN THE GUESSER MAY MAKE MULTIPLE GUESSES. · BUCKET BRICK ON THE NEXT TURN, THE ROLES SWITCH. · LOCUST KEEP TAKING TURNS BEING THE CLUE-GIVER AND THE GUESSER.	p.5	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	WHEN ALL 9 GREEN WORDS HAVE BEEN GUESSED, SAY SO. · IF YOU FIND ALL 15 AGENTS, YOU WIN. · IF YOU MEET THE ASSASSIN, YOU LOSE. · IF YOU RUN OUT OF TIMER TOKENS, YOU GET A SUDDEN DEATH TURN.	p.6	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)		p.5	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	DRAW A RANDOM KEY CARD. · YOU SEE WHAT THEY MUST GUESS. · THEY SEE WHAT YOU MUST GUESS.	p.3	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)		p.4	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	SECRETS OF THE KEY CARD · ZERO CLUE	p.8	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	SIT OPPOSITE YOUR PARTNER. · LAY OUT 25 RANDOM WORDS. · KEEP THE 15 AGENT TILES WITHIN REACH. · AND THE ASSASSIN. · USE 9 TIMER TOKENS.	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Codenames: Duet — Rulebook (corpus doc 350)	DRAW A RANDOM KEY CARD. · YOU SEE WHAT THEY MUST GUESS. · THEY SEE WHAT YOU MUST GUESS.	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 282 ms · first delta 4526 ms · total 7102 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 1682 ms · retrieval 282 ms · ask 5127 ms · gateway work 5420 ms · total 7102 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3630
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 118
tok/sec: 138.3 tok/sec — 118 output tokens in 0.853 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 49s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: BEGIN — "begin" / "beginning"
matched words (in the normalized question): begin

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 278), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.