#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>
Swap em dashes for commas/colons/periods in the README, skills, AGENTS.md and
its five rule copies, examples, command files, and benchmark README. Rule
copies stay in sync (same edit applied to all) and the invariant guard passes.
Left untouched on purpose: the vendored caveman SKILL.md (verbatim third-party
text), the dated benchmark writeups in results/ (historical records), and
.js code comments.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Cover the Kiro steering file in the equality check (the stripper is now shared, renamed to stripFrontmatter), and align its body with AGENTS.md: the 'Not lazy about' and 'Non-trivial logic' sentences were split into two paragraphs where the canonical body and the other four copies keep them as one. The improved check caught this on the freshly merged #6.
Also add a small invariant canary: four load-bearing rule phrases must appear verbatim in both SKILL.md (the runtime source of truth) and AGENTS.md, catching a rule that lands in one but not the other even though the two files are intentionally different lengths.
Verified: passes on main, exits 1 when a copy diverges or an invariant goes missing.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
