wave skill: the agents' standing rules move into the repo

.claude/skills/wave/agent-rules.md replaces /tmp/salvage/standing-rules.md.
SKILL.md and AGENTS.md point to it instead of restating it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VdfEGXA7aJ6ftMsCc9PJze

.claude/skills/wave/SKILL.md

@@ -33,32 +33,34 @@ it must cross. Two agents adding a workspace member will still collide in
 
 ## What every brief must carry
 
+**Point the agent at [`agent-rules.md`](agent-rules.md) and tell it to read it in
+full first.** That file is the agent's standing rules: base and push mechanics,
+the gate list, the claim, the vacuity shapes, evidence, the files it must not
+write, GitHub conventions, the hand-back and disk cleanup. Do not restate them
+in the brief. A restated rule drifts from its source, and the brief is the copy
+nobody corrects. The brief adds only what varies per wave:
+
 1. **The expected base commit, by name.** Worktrees do not reliably branch from
-   HEAD — one was created three merges behind and only noticed because it was
-   told to check.
-2. **The baseline**, so "N passing" is checkable rather than asserted: Rust test
-   count, harness counts, node counts.
-3. **Its ground, and the ground that is not.**
-4. **Never write** `.beads/**`, `prolog-sessions/kb.pl`, `context/repo-map.md`.
-   Agents read them freely and report proposed text; the orchestrator applies it.
-5. **The commit trailers and PR footer**, spelled out.
-6. **Do not push to `main`, do not merge.** The orchestrator merges.
-7. **What to report**: branch and head SHA, PR number, what changed per ticket,
-   *what could not be verified and why*, proposed repo-map/kb text, and **what it
-   learned that the ticket did not predict** — consistently the most valuable
-   part, and omitted unless asked for explicitly.
+   HEAD. One was created three merges behind and was only noticed because it
+   was told to check.
+2. **A reference baseline**, so "N passing" is checkable: Rust test count,
+   harness counts, node counts, and the machine. The agent still measures its
+   own.
+3. **Its ground, and the ground that is not.** Name any orchestrator-only file
+   it is exceptionally allowed to edit.
+4. **Its `BEADS_ACTOR` and its tickets.**
+5. **The commit trailers and PR footer**, spelled out. They carry this
+   session's URL, which is why `agent-rules.md` cannot hold them.
 
-## Method to require, because this repo's defect is a test that passes
+When a hand-back teaches a new rule, add it to `agent-rules.md` in the same
+wave, not to the next brief.
 
-- Failing test first, then the fix.
-- Every guard proved by **injecting the fault it names** and watching it fail
-  **by name**. An injection that does not compile reads as a clean run, so
-  require a positive signal the build ran.
-- `cargo test --workspace` is **fail-fast**; `--no-fail-fast` for any claim about
-  blast radius.
-- A textually clean merge can **delete tests** with no conflict marker, and
-  `cargo check` will not notice. After any merge that moves a test module, diff
-  test **names** — a count is masked by the other side's additions.
+## Method to require
+
+`agent-rules.md`, "Discipline per ticket" and "Gates": failing test first, a
+rival injected and watched failing by name, `--no-fail-fast`, and test *names*
+diffed after any merge. Hold the hand-back to it. This repo's characteristic
+defect is a test that passes.
 
 ## Shepherding
 

.claude/skills/wave/agent-rules.md

@@ -0,0 +1,170 @@
+# Standing rules for a wave agent
+
+Every work-unit agent reads this **in full before its first command**. A brief
+points here and adds only what is specific to its wave: the expected base
+commit, the agent's ground, its `BEADS_ACTOR`, and its tickets. Every rule below
+was bought by a failure.
+
+This file holds each rule **once**. Where `AGENTS.md` ("The Wave Workflow")
+already carries the history and the argument, the rule here is one line and
+points there. Change a rule here, not in a brief, and not in a second copy.
+
+## Base, branch, push
+
+1. **Branch from `gh/main`, never `main` or `origin/main`.** `git fetch gh &&
+   git checkout -b <branch> gh/main`. A worktree handed to you may already sit
+   on unpushed commits. Why: `AGENTS.md`, "Shipping a wave" (the two remotes
+   both spelled `main`, and the worktree-base vector).
+2. **Before opening a PR, check `git diff --numstat gh/main...<branch>`.** Do
+   not use `gh pr view --json files`: that is the union of your commits' files,
+   not the effective diff.
+3. **Push with an explicit refspec:** `git push gh HEAD:refs/heads/<branch>`. A
+   branch cut from `gh/main` tracks `gh/main`, so a bare push targets `main` and
+   is refused.
+4. **Before pushing a fix to an existing PR, check `gh pr view <n> --json
+   state`.** GitHub deletes a merged PR's branch. A push to it then prints
+   `* [new branch]` and lands nowhere. Why: `AGENTS.md`, "Shipping a wave".
+
+## Commit early: a worktree is not durable storage
+
+Commit a WIP as soon as your first test run is green, and again after every
+meaningful step. Push your branch (rule 3) once it is worth keeping. An agent
+finished a whole ticket with every gate green and lost all of it, uncommitted,
+when its worktree was deleted in a disk cleanup. A local commit survives a
+deleted worktree. Tidying history before the PR is fine; losing it is not.
+
+## Gates
+
+```
+direnv exec . cargo test --workspace --no-fail-fast
+direnv exec . cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
+direnv exec . ./scripts/fmt-workspaces.sh          # NOT cargo fmt --all; exit 2 = the gate did not run
+direnv exec . python3 scripts/check-comment-runs.py --check-evidence
+direnv exec . ./scripts/checkers.sh
+direnv exec . ./scripts/node-test.sh 'web/tests/*.test.js'
+```
+
+- **Run everything under `direnv exec .`, and never pipe a gate.** Why, and
+  why not `cargo fmt --all`: `AGENTS.md`, brief item 3.
+- **`--no-fail-fast`**, because plain `cargo test --workspace` stops at the
+  first failing binary. Use it for any claim about blast radius.
+- If you touch a browser-bundle crate (core, formula, io, protocol, command,
+  wasm-client, worker-server), also run
+  `cargo check --target wasm32-unknown-unknown -p <crate>` **for each crate**.
+  CI checks each one separately, so feature unification cannot hide a leak.
+- If you touch `web/` or `harness/`, run the Playwright suite in `harness/`.
+- **Measure your own baseline** before changing anything, and report it with
+  the machine it was measured on. A figure from the brief is a reference, not
+  your baseline.
+- **Merge `gh/main` and re-run every gate before calling a PR green.** Then
+  check that no test *disappeared*. Diff test **names**, not counts: a
+  textually clean merge can delete a test module with no conflict marker, and
+  the other side's new tests mask the loss in a count.
+- **The shell guard refusing a compound command means NEITHER part ran.** Split
+  the command. After a refusal, re-check the state it was meant to produce.
+- **Re-run the full suite after reverting an injected fault.** A revert applied
+  to the wrong occurrence once shipped two faults past every other gate.
+
+## Discipline per ticket
+
+- **Claim first:** `export BEADS_ACTOR=<your actor>` in every shell, then
+  `bd update <id> --claim`. Exit 13 means another actor holds it. Pick another;
+  do not retry. `bd` in a worktree needs `.envrc` allowed: `AGENTS.md`, the
+  paragraph after the brief item list.
+- **Reproduce at HEAD before fixing.** A dozen tickets were stale-open in one
+  campaign, one fixed two days before it was filed. If it does not reproduce,
+  find the fixing commit, confirm with `git merge-base --is-ancestor <sha> HEAD`,
+  report the SHA, and close nothing.
+- **Write a failing test first, then inject a rival and watch it fail.** Run
+  it; do not reason about it. Report *where* it failed, by case name. An
+  injection that does not compile reads as a clean run, so get a positive
+  signal that the build ran.
+- **Check your test against every vacuity shape seen here:**
+  - an assertion the default state already satisfies;
+  - `f(x) == f(x)`: calling a pure `Cmd` twice against one immutable context;
+  - a disjunctive assertion whose other branch is the bug's own symptom;
+  - a rival that fails the *setup*, which proves the neighbouring question
+    (e.g. setup and subject share an `EffectKind`);
+  - a fixture that is right by accident (expected value 1, group at row 0,
+    bystander already on the relayed value);
+  - a fixture or stub that lacks the structure the hazard needs, or fails in a
+    wider shape than the real fault;
+  - hand-picked fixture cases where the set could be **enumerated**: four
+    vacuities in `fmt-workspaces-test.sh` were each a case nobody thought of
+    (improvise-90ea);
+  - a rendered-output test at a width where the thing asserted is never drawn;
+  - a fold test that batches differently from the real producer (a
+    `Binding::Sequence` is ONE effect vec);
+  - **the cursor at index 0**: "the item under the cursor" and "the first item"
+    are indistinguishable there, and that was four of five findings in one
+    review. Seat the cursor at a nonzero index of a list with at least two
+    elements;
+  - a determinism check against ONE context instance: every `HashMap` iterates
+    the same way twice. Build two equal contexts independently
+    (improvise-hzjo);
+  - two derivations of one fact where the fixture makes them agree (drawn vs
+    committed, edit text vs value, `1200` vs `1.23456789`). Use a value where
+    they disagree.
+- **Record each bug in `context/test-evidence/<area>.md`**, keyed by test name
+  (module-qualify the name when the leaf is not unique). It is append-at-EOF, so
+  **expect a conflict**. Keep both sides and verify line by line against both
+  parents: `--check-evidence` cannot see a dropped entry.
+- **Comment runs are at most two lines.** Reasoning goes in `context/`, not in
+  comments (`context/design-principles.md` §6).
+- **If the acceptance criteria look wrong, argue it** rather than following
+  them silently. Three agents inverted theirs in one campaign, and all three
+  were right.
+
+## Files you must not write
+
+`.beads/**` (never commit `issues.jsonl`, never `git checkout` it),
+`prolog-sessions/kb.pl`, `context/repo-map.md`: `AGENTS.md`, "Who owns what".
+Also `AGENTS.md`, unless your brief grants you a named section. Report proposed
+text for any of these in your hand-back.
+
+## GitHub
+
+- `gh` is shell-aliased to a different tool. Use
+  `nix shell nixpkgs#gh --command gh …`, and pass bodies with `-F body=@file`.
+- **Everything posted goes out under the repository owner's account.** Open
+  every PR body and comment with:
+  `_Posted by Claude (<model>), an agent in Edward Langley's session._`
+- Commit trailers and the PR footer are given by your brief, verbatim. They
+  carry a session URL, so they cannot live here.
+- Read reviews with `./scripts/pr-reviews <n>`, and do not pipe it. How to tell
+  a ChatGPT Codex review from ours, and why Copilot is not coming: `AGENTS.md`,
+  "Shipping a wave". Answer each Codex review on its thread.
+- **Do not merge, and do not close beads.** Avoid stacked PRs. If you must
+  stack, never let the base branch be deleted.
+
+## Hand-back, per ticket
+
+Report:
+
+- the claim result;
+- your measured baseline;
+- whether the ticket reproduced (the SHA if it did not);
+- the rival and where it failed;
+- what you could not verify, and why;
+- proposed repo-map and `kb.pl` text;
+- **what the ticket did not predict**, consistently the most valuable part.
+
+## Disk
+
+Each worktree's `target/` grows to 3–6G, and a full disk (ENOSPC) once stopped
+every agent. **When you hand back, delete your own build output, and only
+yours.**
+
+Run `pwd` and `git rev-parse --show-toplevel` first, and read the answer. Then
+delete by **literal absolute path**, typed out:
+`rm -rf /Users/.../.claude/worktrees/agent-<you>/target`.
+
+**Never interpolate a computed path into `rm -rf`.** One agent's worktree had
+been removed, so `$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)` printed nothing and the
+command became `rm -rf "/target"`. A guarded one-liner was tried, but the
+worktree shell guard refuses it as too complex, which pushed agents back to an
+unguarded form. A literal path is the version that is both allowed and safe.
+
+Keep your branch and any uncommitted work. Delete only `target/` (and
+`harness/opfs-contract/target` if you built it). If you see ENOSPC, stop and
+report rather than deleting anything outside your worktree.

AGENTS.md

@@ -100,6 +100,14 @@ Two agents each adding a workspace member will still collide in
 
 ### Every wave agent's brief must include
 
+The rules an agent follows itself are
+**`.claude/skills/wave/agent-rules.md`**, and a brief points there rather than
+restating them. That covers base and push mechanics, the gate list, the claim,
+the vacuity shapes, evidence, forbidden files, GitHub conventions, the
+hand-back and disk cleanup. The list below is what this section argues for. A
+new rule an agent must follow goes into that file. It does not go here, and it
+does not go into the next brief.
+
 1. **Verify your base commit first.** Worktrees do **not** reliably branch from
    the orchestrator's HEAD — one was created three merges behind and only
    noticed because it was told to look. `git log --oneline -1` against a named