Commit Graph
2 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
bvandeusenandClaude Fable 5 3ff8803593 feat(instructions): fit the delivery fold — 2k server map, floor Systems reflex, write-time systems_hint
CI & Build / Python lint (push) Successful in 3s
CI & Build / Plugin hooks (push) Successful in 7s
CI & Build / integration (push) Successful in 18s
CI & Build / TypeScript typecheck (push) Successful in 32s
CI & Build / Python tests (push) Successful in 47s
CI & Build / Build & push image (push) Successful in 28s
Claude Code injects only the first ~2,048 chars of an MCP server's
instructions and silently cuts the rest mid-word (#2562, observed live):
_INSTRUCTIONS was 20,002 chars, so ~90% — including all Systems tagging
guidance — never reached any session. Rearchitect delivery around what
each surface actually delivers:

- _INSTRUCTIONS becomes a 1,997-char purpose-sorted map, with a header
  comment stating the budget and where detail belongs instead.
- Tool docstrings keep the per-tool HOW (audit: nearly all displaced
  topics were already duplicated there); backfill the four gaps —
  enter_project session scoping + project bootstrap, create_rule
  entity-vs-rule test, create_design_system not-a-rulebook,
  create_system two-records test.
- The plugin static context (the delivery floor) gains the
  tag-to-Systems reflex and a surfaces-layering statement; plugin
  0.1.25 -> 0.1.26 so the executing cache refreshes (#2209).
- create_task / create_note / create_snippet return a systems_hint when
  a record is created untagged in a project that has Systems — in-band
  at the exact write it applies to, fail-open like the dedup gate.
- Guards: _INSTRUCTIONS length budget, floor-states-the-reflex, and a
  displaced-topics sweep asserting every cut topic still lives on a
  delivered surface.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-09 12:53:35 -04:00
bvandeusen ffd08507f1 fix(instructions): the push is an optimisation, not the bridge
CI & Build / Python lint (push) Successful in 3s
CI & Build / Plugin hooks (push) Successful in 9s
CI & Build / integration (push) Successful in 15s
CI & Build / TypeScript typecheck (push) Successful in 33s
CI & Build / Python tests (push) Successful in 47s
CI & Build / Build & push image (push) Successful in 29s
_INSTRUCTIONS told an agent the SessionStart hook was how rules reach a
session, and used that as the argument against a host-memory pointer. The
using-scribe skill said the opposite — pull them yourself, treat any push as a
bonus. Nothing said which wins, and #119 makes these surfaces the
specification, so this was the product behaving two ways.

#2198 is the case that settles it: every plugin hook was silently inert for an
extended period. An agent trusting the push would have run with no binding
rules and no signal, while those rules govern branch, commit and push.

So: _INSTRUCTIONS now leads with the explicit pull and names the hook as a
delivery optimisation. The argument against a host-memory pointer survives —
it never needed the hook to be reliable, because the pull IS the bridge and it
is written into every surface a session already loads.

The static context gains the tiebreaker for the next disagreement: follow the
surface that assumes least about its own delivery. "Most detailed wins" is
wrong precisely because the most detailed surface is the one with a delivery
precondition. It goes there by its own logic — a tiebreaker arriving over MCP
cannot arbitrate what to do when MCP is absent.

Guarded by tests/test_instruction_surfaces_agree.py: every session-start
surface states the pull, and no surface names the push without it. Plugin
version bumped so the cache that executes actually picks the file up (#2209).

Refs #2497
2026-08-06 08:23:36 -04:00