From 7511985d485f6f2e30ff7fe302721c09be47a4e8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: sylph-decoder Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2026 01:01:31 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] method: commit the tool before running it, and never edit it mid-run Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Wuu56cE8vJGTBtn1ppsk8v --- docs/re/METHOD.md | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/re/METHOD.md b/docs/re/METHOD.md index f87207a8..3b313f33 100644 --- a/docs/re/METHOD.md +++ b/docs/re/METHOD.md @@ -2749,3 +2749,30 @@ of the other traps on this page. 📌 Use a heredoc (`git commit -F -`) or single quotes for any message containing backticks. This page is full of identifiers in backticks, so the exposure is constant. + +## Commit the tool before you run it — and never edit it while it runs + +The third submenu sweep died because I **edited the sweep script while its own run +was in flight**, and deliberately broke its decision rule with `sed` to check the +new self-test could fail. The sweep reads its script when *it* starts — after the +reach probe finishes — and that fell inside the window. It read the broken rule. + +✅ **The self-test caught it and refused to run**, on the day it was written, +against a fault I had introduced. Without it the sweep would have reported +`RESETS` for all three screens: confident, uniform, and fabricated. + +⚠️ Three further self-inflicted faults in the same hour, recorded because the +failure was process rather than analysis: + +* a **competing `x11grab` during a measurement** — the concurrency confound + `sylpheed-port` had just warned cost them a 7-point swing; +* `pkill -f x11grab` to clear it, which can kill the running probe's own capture — + this page already records `pkill -f` matching the caller's shell, biting the same + way from a different direction; +* the **restore of the broken file sat as the last line of a command that timed + out**, so it never ran; recovering with `git checkout` then discarded the entire + uncommitted rework. + +📌 **An uncommitted tool is one timed-out command away from being unrecoverable, +and a tool edited during its own run is not the tool that ran.** Commit first, then +run. Cheap, and it would have prevented all four.