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The rule that a stated measurement belongs to the tree it was taken on ships nowhere #1495

Description

@braboj

Do not pick up before the trigger condition fires.

Trigger: #1480 reports. That spike classifies every core-tier section as
invariant policy or process layer, and the section this issue adds to is
classified as moving. Writing the rule first means writing it into a file whose
home is undecided, and the split would then have to carry it twice.

If #1480 is rejected and the core tier stays as it is, this becomes ready
immediately.


What

This repository's CLAUDE.md section 6.2 carries:

Report only measurements this session took. An issue states its measurement
against the tree on its filing date; repeating that figure in a commit
message or pull request body asserts it about the tree now, and the two
differ precisely when the defect has since been fixed.

grep over templates/ finds no equivalent. The rule is applied here and
shipped to nobody.

Why it earns a template

It was load-bearing again on 2026-09-03. Issue #1460 claimed 65 missing files
across 20 distinct files; re-measured before the work started, the tree gave
38 across 3. The defect was real and the magnitude was stale — intervening
[DEPENDS ON] additions had closed most of the gap. Quoting the issue's
figure in the pull request body would have asserted a false measurement about
the tree being merged.

The failure mode is general to any agent working from a tracker: the issue is
the most convenient source of a number, it reads as evidence, and it is a
snapshot of a tree that no longer exists. It is also a failure mode with no
gate — nothing can detect a true-sounding figure.

Where it goes

templates/base/workflow/ai-workflow.md, which already governs what the
agent does during a session, rather than base/core/docs.md, which governs
documents.

Note the tension worth resolving in the issue: ai-workflow is an
orthogonal root, so a project that does not opt in gets nothing. If the rule
is judged to belong to every consumer it needs a core-tier home, and that
decision interacts with #1480.

Acceptance criteria

  • The rule ships in a template, naming the tracker case explicitly
  • A decision is recorded on whether it belongs to an opt-in root or the
    core tier

Activity

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