#245 "Dangerously lazy": add an operational "fix the root cause, not the
symptom" directive — grep every caller of the function you touch and fix the
shared function once (the smaller diff). Validated on the agentic benchmark: on
a shared-helper bug-fix trap, baseline fixes the root cause 1/6 while ponytail
does 6/6 on both Sonnet 4.6 (the model the issue was filed on) and Opus 4.8,
verified by reading the produced code. Plain prose ("trace the flow") did not
move it; the actionable, lazy-framed directive did.
#217 "Missing rung": add ladder rung 2 "Already in this codebase? Reuse it,
don't re-write it." Propagated across SKILL.md, AGENTS.md, all agent mirror
copies, the hook fallback, and both READMEs (check-rule-copies passes).
Benchmark: 4 new deterministic quality-tier tasks (reuse-slug, reuse-money,
trace-transfer, trace-amount) with selftest-proven good/bad refs; harness gains
multi-file seed support in --selftest, distinctive-behaviour reuse detection,
and counts in-file __main__/demo() self-checks as test LOC (not source bloat)
for surgical tasks. Full writeup in
benchmarks/results/2026-06-22-issue-245-217-comprehension.md.
Also carries the in-progress todo-null benchmark task already present in the
working tree.
Co-authored-by: Dietrich Gebert <dgebert@Dietrichs-MacBook-Pro.local>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat: refine ruleset from a full-project field review
A reviewer ran ponytail across a 9-phase rewrite (protocol, PC app, simulator,
RPi daemon, ESP32 firmware) and flagged three gaps. All three land in SKILL.md
and propagate to AGENTS.md + the rule copies:
- Promote the one-runnable-check rule to a headline ("Lazy code without its
check is unfinished"), enforced as a check-rule-copies invariant.
- Hardware carve-out in "When NOT to be lazy": a real device is never the spec
ideal (clock drift, sensor offset), leave the calibration knob.
- Clarify the Output rule: explanation the user explicitly asked for is not
debt, only unrequested prose is.
Fallback instructions kept in sync. Rule-copy check + tests green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test: add a behavior gate proving the refinements actually fire
The refinements were verified as injected text, but injected != behavioral.
This adds a behavior eval that probes each refined rule on a task that should
trigger it:
- hardware -> does the output leave a calibration knob?
- explanation -> when a write-up is explicitly requested, is it given in full?
- onecheck -> is a runnable check left behind?
benchmarks/behavior.yaml runs the probes (baseline vs ponytail arm); the
grader benchmarks/behavior.js is proven by tests/behavior.test.js (8 cases,
RED/GREEN, no API key, runs in CI). Live-confirmed: the model under the
current ruleset passes all three gates, graded by the same grader.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
filterSkillBodyForMode only filters lines whose label is a real mode (lite/full/ultra). Rule bullets like 'No unrequested abstractions:' and the 'ponytail:' comment convention were being stripped from injected instructions in every mode. Adds regression test.
