From 4b79dc54472851bde55df06110cc2ea4a6ef6edf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eureka Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2026 18:42:28 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Prior art before every nontrivial fork: an Eyes pass on papers and implementations precedes the question Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 --- SKILL.md | 13 +++++++++++++ references/changelog.md | 9 +++++++++ 2 files changed, 22 insertions(+) diff --git a/SKILL.md b/SKILL.md index 5fa3b2e..734830d 100644 --- a/SKILL.md +++ b/SKILL.md @@ -187,6 +187,19 @@ Templates are in `references/briefs.md` and `references/campaign-state.md`. ### 2. Operator rulings +**Prior art comes before every nontrivial fork.** Before a nontrivial question +goes to the operator, Self stops the line that raised it. Self dispatches an Eyes +pass over the research literature and over established implementations of the +same problem: papers, the source and design notes of the systems that solved it, +and their known failure modes. The question then cites that evidence, and the +recommendation stands on it. Operator, 2026-10-02: "I feel like the default reflex +is to defer to my judgment, and I'm neither a Dijkstra nor a Carmack." The +operator rules on what the project is for and what it values. Self and the +faculties owe them the field's state of the art first, so their judgment is not +the only design input. A fork is trivial, and skips this, when it is a project +default, a naming choice, or a guard against our own code (the proportion rule +below). When unsure, run the pass. + Put the open questions to the operator together, from the open-questions recipe, each with its options, recommendation, and what depends on the answer. Self admits every answer as a `ruling` that answers its question, keeping the diff --git a/references/changelog.md b/references/changelog.md index 87cabf7..bfc569f 100644 --- a/references/changelog.md +++ b/references/changelog.md @@ -1327,3 +1327,12 @@ brief template prescribed foreground polling in tool-timeout chunks (one model c also claimed "nothing wakes you", which is stale: the harness wakes an agent when its background shell exits. Both brief sections now say: one background waiter per job that exits on the event, no timer under 60 s, no duplicate watchers, no interim messages. + +## 2026-10-02: prior art before every nontrivial fork +Operator, verbatim: "can we make it a rule to stop what we're doing and do an Eyes pass to look at research papers +and other implementations related to whatever we're working on before any nontrivial forks? I feel like the default +reflex is to defer to my judgment, and I'm neither a Dijkstra nor a Carmack". Evidence: in the Asura and variants +campaigns that day, Self put the single-file store's write model (carry foreign records, refuse, log-structured, page +tree) to the operator from first principles. SQLite, LMDB and log-structured stores had not been surveyed, and +neither had the literature. SKILL.md step 2 now requires an Eyes prior-art pass before a nontrivial question +reaches the operator.