Three Chart Facts That Come Before Any Prediction

The first fact a kundli fixes is the lagna, the sign rising at the birth city after the zone offset, in minutes, is applied to the local time. Daylight saving changes that offset, so it can change the lagna even when the clock on the wall looks the same. Jyothish SI casts this sidereal chart with the Lahiri ayanamsa and Swiss Ephemeris, and it geocodes the city rather than trusting the state name. A chart drawn for the wrong city is a different ascendant. No later step repairs that.

The second fact is the nakshatra the Moon occupies. Vimshottari starts from that nakshatra's lord, and the first mahadasha is only the balance left in the nakshatra, not the full span. The lords run Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, and Mercury 17, a 120-year cycle. If you skip this, you will describe yogas that are not alive in the current period. A yoga whose lords are not in the mahadasha or antardasha is a promise waiting, not the chapter you are in.

The third fact is the house of the question. Marriage is the 7th house, its lord, and the Navamsa. Work is the 10th house and its lord. Children are the 5th and Jupiter. Do not tour all twelve houses and call that a reading. Note where the house lord sits, which grahas join it, and whether that lord's dasha is running. If the birth time is uncertain by half an hour, say so. The lagna may still be stable, or it may have changed sign. Pretending the time is exact is how a three-step reading becomes fiction.