## TL;DR
Fix this in questionnaire routing by acting on the exact message first: fix the routing taxonomy so topic tags win over keyword matches (cloud and infrastructure tags route to engineering, contract and DPA tags route to legal), then reassign the misrouted questions. Do not rerun the whole job unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one item, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the counts.

```text
security questionnaire SME routing failed error cloud question assigned to legal
```

## Use this when
- The operation in questionnaire routing fails with this exact message: security questionnaire SME routing failed error cloud question assigned to legal.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A review, export or check is blocked until this item completes.

## Not for this skill when
- The message is a permission or outage notice from the platform. Resolve that first, then return here if this error remains.
- The operation completes and you only disagree with its output. That is a quality review, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure with the smallest scope that still shows it in questionnaire routing, and copy the full message plus the questionnaire, answer or evidence item involved into the run notes. Verify: the error is reproduced on demand with a named item, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this error: fix the routing taxonomy so topic tags win over keyword matches (cloud and infrastructure tags route to engineering, contract and DPA tags route to legal), then reassign the misrouted questions. Verify: the misrouted cloud questions show an engineering owner and a new test question with a legal keyword but a cloud tag routes to engineering.
3. Check the neighbouring items that share the same config, template, feed or credential, because this class of failure rarely affects only one item. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Compare the result counts, decisions or alerts against the source in questionnaire routing so a silent partial success is caught before sign off. Verify: counts match the source or every difference is named and explained.
5. Rerun the original operation in questionnaire routing on the previously failing scope, watching for the same message rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original message does not appear.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the item so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the error, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Why it happens
routing matched a contract keyword inside the question text and ignored the topic tag, so technical questions mentioning agreements landed with legal.

## Variant phrasings

### security questionnaire SME routing failed error cloud question assigned to legal
The verbatim form searchers paste from the terminal or console. Treat it identically: same fix, same single item proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix: security questionnaire SME routing failed error cloud question assigned to legal failure
The how-to phrasing for the same failure in questionnaire routing. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### questionnaire routing troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom-first phrasing used when the console hides the full message. Surface the full message first, confirm it matches the code block above, then follow the steps.

Compatibility: questionnaire routing at current versions, plus the platform API or console the query names; no extra tooling beyond a text editor and the source system access needed to verify counts.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_xqKaag4jDTTZ-r_MCye0BA