Every instruction surface told a session to load the always-on rules and
stopped there. None said the loaded set is partial, so an empty one read as
"no rule applies" when it only ever meant "none was pushed" — different
claims, and only one of them has been checked.
That is #2198's asymmetry one level in. The earlier defect was trusting the
SessionStart push over the explicit pull; this is trusting the resident TIER
as if it were the whole rulebook.
It is also why the always-on tier was the only one that worked, on any install
rather than this one (rule 115): a rule nothing retrieves must be resident to
bind at all, and a resident rule costs tokens in every session forever — so a
rulebook that only delivers cannot grow past what one session holds.
Retrieval lifts that ceiling, and it fires only if something asks. A
tool-choice reflex asks least of all (#3476, #161).
The same obligation now lands on all three session-start surfaces, because
rule 119 makes them the specification jointly and a surface stating it
differently IS the product behaving differently (#2497). Pinned by
test_every_session_start_surface_states_the_conditional_retrieval, mirroring
the pull test beside it.
THE BUDGET TRADE. _INSTRUCTIONS sat at 1978 against a 2000 test budget, and
its own comment says an addition there is a trade, never an append. Bought the
new clause by trading out "Processes are saved procedures (follow verbatim)"
and "Deletes are trash-recoverable" — both already in DISPLACED_TOPICS and
already stated on a delivered surface, and both per-tool guidance, which by
this block's doctrine belongs in the tool docstring. Now 1976. Recorded in the
comment above the block so it is not silently reversed.
Plugin version minted: shipped plugin content moved.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_011cPyzNnegXHr5iRMzzy5KJ
bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5
30d87e461a