Files
FabledScribe/tests/test_instruction_surfaces_agree.py
T
bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5 0ed8e86cd5
CI & Build / Python lint (push) Successful in 3s
CI & Build / Plugin hooks (push) Failing after 10s
CI & Build / integration (push) Successful in 51s
CI & Build / TypeScript typecheck (push) Successful in 55s
CI & Build / Python tests (push) Successful in 1m31s
CI & Build / Build & push image (push) Successful in 24s
feat(instructions): a rule proposal has five answers, and three of them route (#3733, #3896)
Step 6 of both milestone 385 (lessons) and 399 (preferences). #3896 asked for
the fourth and fifth answers in one pass, because two people each adding one
branch to a three-way distinction produce a list that does not read as a set.

create_rule now opens by asking what kind of thing is being held, with one
question that sorts it — what happens if someone doesn't do this? Something
breaks, a boundary is crossed: a rule. It gets done a way the operator didn't
want: a preference. They lose time rediscovering it: a lesson. The closing
question grew the two matching answers, and they are named as first-class
outcomes rather than places a proposal lands when it fails. An observation
that turns out to be a lesson has been routed, not dropped.

Stated as a practice, not a prohibition (rule 165). #3557's first cut opened
"NOT YOURS TO CALL UNPROMPTED" and cost the noticing; the wanted behaviour
here is still more proposals, and what changes is only which door they go
through.

create_note says the same from its side, so routing does not depend on having
opened create_rule first — and its existing rule test ("a mistake, not merely
uninformed") turned out to name the lesson exactly. create_lesson names the
fifth kind so the set is complete from every door. create_project_rule's
citation of the loop names five answers, since it cites rather than repeats.

The force axis has one owner (decision #4027): using-scribe states all three
strengths, the sorting question, that updating a preference mid-work is the
normal case, and that preferences shape how work is done and never what gets
recorded. _INSTRUCTIONS carries the pointer — "Rules bind; preferences guide
and you keep them current; lessons inform." It had 14 characters of headroom,
so the clause is paid for by trimming atmosphere from three other lines; 1998
of 2000 now.

Guards: the proposal-loop test learns the preference branch, the lesson
branch and the force question, on both rule surfaces; guidance-ownership gains
the force-axis topic (shared with the docstrings, for the moment a proposal is
actually written) and the preference-scope topic; a new guard pins that the
index names all three strengths and who keeps the middle one current, with its
can-fail case being the omission that actually happens — a kind added to the
product while the index still describes the corpus that came before it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01821k5B3Ysecp9fNYs92Kuy
2026-09-19 12:12:14 -04:00

214 lines
10 KiB
Python

"""What the instruction surfaces must say that one owner per topic cannot enforce.
WHY THIS FILE IS SMALLER THAN IT WAS
Until milestone 410 this file pinned REDUNDANCY: every session-start surface —
the MCP `_INSTRUCTIONS`, the plugin's static context, the `using-scribe` skill —
had to restate how a rule reaches a session, what an empty session means, the
Systems reflex and the snippet-recording triggers. That was the design #2494
chose after #2497 (two surfaces disagreeing about who loads the rules) and
#2198 (every hook silently inert): say it everywhere, so no single failure
loses it.
Decision #4027 replaced that with ownership, and tests/test_guidance_ownership.py
now enforces it: every topic stated in full by exactly one owner, with a
one-line pointer in the server's index. The tests that required every surface
to repeat itself were retired there, because they enforced the very duplication
that drifted (#4022). What they protected is still protected:
- "state how to ask for a rule" / "say an empty session is not an empty
rulebook" → the rules topic: owned by using-scribe, indexed in
`_INSTRUCTIONS` with both phrases;
- the Systems reflex and the snippet-recording triggers → their topics'
markers, required on their owners;
- "never name the SessionStart push without stating the ask" (#2497's exact
shape) → retired outright. Since milestone 394 the push carries no rules,
so naming it can no longer imply rules were handled, and requiring every
surface that mentions it to restate the ask would force a copy.
WHAT STAYS HERE
Properties of a CLAIM rather than of who owns a topic: the index fits the
fold; a surface that says rules bind also names what does not; using-scribe
still sends a session to the reporting-back skill.
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import pathlib
ROOT = pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1]
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 _instructions_text() -> str:
"""The _INSTRUCTIONS literal from server.py, as the client would see it."""
import re
src = (ROOT / "src" / "scribe" / "mcp" / "server.py").read_text()
match = re.search(r'_INSTRUCTIONS = """(.*?)"""', src, re.S)
assert match, "server.py no longer defines _INSTRUCTIONS as a triple-quoted literal"
return match.group(1).strip()
# Claude Code injects only the first ~2,048 characters of an MCP server's
# instructions and silently cuts the rest mid-word (#2562: observed live —
# the previous 20k-char version delivered ~10% of itself, and none of the
# Systems tagging guidance ever reached a session). 2,000 leaves margin.
INSTRUCTIONS_BUDGET = 2000
def test_instructions_fit_the_fold():
text = _instructions_text()
assert len(text) <= INSTRUCTIONS_BUDGET, (
f"_INSTRUCTIONS is {len(text)} chars; Claude Code injects only ~2,048 "
f"and silently cuts the rest (#2562). This block is an INDEX — state "
f"the topic in full on its owner (a skill or the tool's docstring, "
f"decision #4027) and give it at most a line here; see the comment "
f"above _INSTRUCTIONS."
)
# ── force: a surface that says rules bind must say what does not ────────
#
# Added with the preference kind (milestone 399). Before it, "rules bind" was
# the whole truth and every surface said so flatly. It is now half of one, and
# the half that is missing is the dangerous half to omit: a session reading
# only "rules bind" and then receiving a preference has been told, by the most
# authoritative surface it has, to treat it as binding.
#
# That failure is silent in both directions. Treating a preference as a rule
# produces a session that refuses to proceed over something the operator only
# preferred; and it removes the reason preferences exist, which is that they
# can be brought up to date rather than obeyed.
#
# Same bargain as every test in this file: STRUCTURE, not wording. A surface
# passes by mentioning the other kind at all, so the prose stays free.
#
# PINNED ON THE CLAIM, NOT THE WORD "bind". A bare substring also matches
# `bind_repo`, `list_repo_bindings` and the DNS-rebinding comment in
# server.py — so it would one day fail a skill that mentions repo binding and
# has nothing to do with force, which is rule 167's named failure: a guard
# raising a false alarm about the very thing it protects. These phrases are
# the ones that actually assert bindingness to a reader.
BINDING_CLAIMS = (
"rules bind",
"binding rules",
"rules are binding",
"treat every one as binding",
)
OTHER_KIND = "preference"
def test_a_surface_claiming_rules_bind_also_names_what_does_not():
offenders = [
label for label, text in _all_surfaces()
if any(c in text.lower() for c in BINDING_CLAIMS)
and OTHER_KIND not in text.lower()
]
assert not offenders, (
f"these surfaces tell a session that rules bind and never mention "
f"preferences: {offenders}. A preference arrives through the same arms "
f"and renders in the same line shape, so a surface that describes only "
f"the binding kind is read as covering both — and the session treats "
f"'how the operator likes this done' as something it may not proceed "
f"past. Name the other kind, however briefly."
)
# ── the index names every strength, and who keeps the middle one current ──
#
# Milestones 385 and 399 both end here, and for the same reason. The index is
# the one guidance surface EVERY MCP client receives — a client that reads no
# Agent Skills still gets it — so a strength the index omits does not exist for
# that session. Before the lesson kind, "rules bind; preferences guide" was the
# whole corpus; a session that meets a third line shape with no name for it
# falls back on the nearest one it has, which is the binding one.
#
# The currency half is the claim #3896 was written around: a preference is the
# one record a session updates ITSELF, without asking. Stated only in the
# skill, it reaches a session that loaded the skill — which is exactly the
# session least likely to need telling. In the index it reaches everyone.
#
# Words, not wording: each entry is a family, and a rewrite satisfies it by
# saying the thing in any of these ways.
INDEX_STRENGTHS = {
"that rules bind": ("rules bind",),
"that preferences guide": ("preferences guide",),
"that lessons inform": ("lessons inform", "lessons are", "a lesson informs"),
"that a preference is kept current": ("current",),
}
def test_the_index_names_all_three_strengths():
text = " ".join(_instructions_text().split()).lower()
missing = [claim for claim, family in INDEX_STRENGTHS.items()
if not any(t in text for t in family)]
assert not missing, (
f"_INSTRUCTIONS no longer says {missing}. It is the only guidance every "
f"client receives, and a record kind it does not name is one the session "
f"has to guess the force of — which it does by reaching for the kind it "
f"does know. Keep it to a clause; the full statement lives on "
f"using-scribe (decision #4027)."
)
def test_the_strength_guard_can_fail():
"""Rule 167. The guard has to be able to bite, and it bites on omission —
the failure that actually happens, when a kind is added to the product and
the index is left describing the corpus that came before it."""
text = "rules bind; preferences guide and you keep them current."
missing = [claim for claim, family in INDEX_STRENGTHS.items()
if not any(t in text for t in family)]
assert missing == ["that lessons inform"]
# ── Reporting back (milestone 409 step 3) ──────────────────────────────
#
# The reporting-back skill carries the shapes, but a skill only helps if it
# fires. The reflex that sends a session to it is stated in using-scribe; the
# server's index carries a REPORT line pointing at `placement`, and the in-band
# cue on update_task is the half that fires on its own in every client. The
# static context was a second plugin-side copy until milestone 410.
REPORT_REFLEX = "report back in a shape the operator can read"
REPORT_SURFACES = (
ROOT / "plugin" / "skills" / "using-scribe" / "SKILL.md",
)
def test_the_reporting_reflex_is_stated_in_using_scribe():
missing = []
for path in REPORT_SURFACES:
text = " ".join(path.read_text().split()).lower()
if REPORT_REFLEX not in text or "reporting-back" not in text:
missing.append(str(path.relative_to(ROOT)))
assert not missing, (
f"these surfaces no longer send a session to the reporting-back skill "
f"({REPORT_REFLEX!r} plus the skill's name): {missing}. Without the "
f"reflex the skill loads only when its description happens to match."
)
def test_the_reporting_reflex_takes_placement_from_the_record():
"""The failure milestone 409 began from: a placement reconstructed from
memory reads exactly like a real one when it is wrong."""
for path in REPORT_SURFACES:
text = " ".join(path.read_text().split())
assert "`placement`" in text, f"{path.relative_to(ROOT)} no longer points at the placement block"