"""The instruction surfaces must agree that the agent pulls the rules itself. WHY THIS EXISTS Rule #119 makes the instruction surfaces the SPECIFICATION for product behaviour — there is no other place the "load the operator's rules" obligation is written down, and no code path enforces it. So a surface that states it differently isn't a documentation slip; it is the product behaving differently. That happened (#2497). `_INSTRUCTIONS` said the SessionStart hook "is the bridge" for getting rules into a session, while the `using-scribe` skill said to pull them yourself and treat any push as a bonus. An agent weighting the first would reasonably skip the pull. #2198 is the case where that is wrong: every plugin hook was silently inert for an extended period, and nothing announced it. An agent trusting the push would have run with no binding rules and no signal — while those rules govern branch, commit, push and other hard-to-reverse actions. The asymmetry is the whole argument, and it is what these tests pin: pulling when a push also arrived costs one redundant call; not pulling when the push never came costs the operator's rules entirely. WHAT THIS DOES NOT DO It cannot tell whether two surfaces contradict each other in prose generally — that needs a reader. It pins the one instruction whose absence is known to be load-bearing, and the specific shape the #2497 defect took: naming the push without also stating the pull. """ from __future__ import annotations import pathlib ROOT = pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1] # The pull instruction, however a surface phrases the surrounding prose. PULL = "list_always_on_rules" # Surfaces a session loads before substantive work. Hand-written because # "is this a session-start surface?" is an editorial fact, not a derivable one — # but each entry is asserted to EXIST, so a move or rename fails loudly here # instead of quietly dropping that surface from the check. SESSION_START_SURFACES = ( ROOT / "src" / "scribe" / "mcp" / "server.py", ROOT / "plugin" / "hooks" / "scribe_static_context.md", ROOT / "plugin" / "skills" / "using-scribe" / "SKILL.md", ) def _all_surfaces() -> list[tuple[str, str]]: """(label, text) for every file a SESSION loads as instructions. Deliberately not every markdown file under plugin/: `README.md` describes the push channel to the operator installing the plugin, and telling a human what the hook does is not the same act as telling an agent it need not pull. The boundary is "does a session read this", which is skills (loaded by description match), the hook-injected static context, and the MCP server's own instructions. """ found = [(str(p.relative_to(ROOT)), p.read_text()) for p in (ROOT / "plugin" / "skills").rglob("SKILL.md")] found += [(str(p.relative_to(ROOT)), p.read_text()) for p in (ROOT / "plugin" / "hooks").glob("*.md")] server = ROOT / "src" / "scribe" / "mcp" / "server.py" found.append((str(server.relative_to(ROOT)), server.read_text())) return found def test_every_session_start_surface_states_the_pull(): missing = [] for path in SESSION_START_SURFACES: assert path.exists(), ( f"{path.relative_to(ROOT)} is gone — it was one of the surfaces " f"carrying the load-the-rules instruction. If it moved, update " f"SESSION_START_SURFACES; if it was retired, check the instruction " f"still lives somewhere a fresh session reads." ) if PULL not in path.read_text(): missing.append(str(path.relative_to(ROOT))) assert not missing, ( f"these surfaces no longer tell the agent to call {PULL}(): {missing}. " f"The rules are pull-only and the push is best-effort, so a surface " f"that omits this leaves a session bound by nothing (#2198, #2497)." ) def test_no_surface_names_the_push_without_stating_the_pull(): """The exact shape #2497 took. Mentioning the SessionStart hook is fine and often useful. Mentioning it *instead of* the pull is the defect: it reads as "this is handled", and the surface that says so is the one an agent has least reason to doubt. """ offenders = [ label for label, text in _all_surfaces() if "SessionStart" in text and PULL not in text ] assert not offenders, ( f"these surfaces describe the SessionStart push but never state the " f"explicit pull: {offenders}. The push is a delivery optimisation, not " f"the bridge — it can be absent without saying so. Name it if it helps, " f"but say to call {PULL}() regardless." )