Without retrieval, "a subject expert any agent can consult over MCP" is narration: the expert has a persona and memory but nothing to cite.
The knowledge service supplies this eventually (phase-5) but carries Postgres, an embedder, and its own deploy — far too much to ask of someone who just wants to drill a course.
Ship a lexical-first search_course tool on etude serve:
- SQLite FTS5 over the lesson tree and the processed notes
- citations are lesson path plus heading, which is what the expert prompt requires
- honest coverage reporting on empty results, rather than silence
- embeddings optional later; the tool contract does not change when they arrive
Small, dependency-light, and it makes the expert leg real at the same setup cost as the drill.
Without retrieval, "a subject expert any agent can consult over MCP" is narration: the expert has a persona and memory but nothing to cite.
The knowledge service supplies this eventually (phase-5) but carries Postgres, an embedder, and its own deploy — far too much to ask of someone who just wants to drill a course.
Ship a lexical-first
search_coursetool onetude serve:Small, dependency-light, and it makes the expert leg real at the same setup cost as the drill.