{"content": "todo 1 next", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 57 \u2014 Never merge the overnight refactor into main before its pull request\u2026 \u2014 Messages 15005, 15006, 15109, 15110 (2026-10-04): all refactor work goes on branch overnight-refactor and reaches the user as one pull request, which they read in the morning; nothing of it is merged into main until they say so. Hotfixes the user explicitly asks for go to main at once and are merged into the branch.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 34s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "law L3 \u2014 Read narrowly - grep for the line, sed a range, head the file; never\u2026 \u2014 Everything a tool returns stays in the context for good and is paid for on every turn after it. Search before you read, read the range you need, and cap output with grep, head or tail. Read a whole file only when you need all of it.; rule 48 \u2014 The viewer is built from its component library, and pages only\u2026 \u2014 Message 4258. Every visual piece the viewer shows more than once, or that a user would recognise as the same kind of thing (a dialog, a side panel or inspector, a dropdown, a list row, a switch, a button), is one component in web/src/kit, extracted aggressively, and every page composes those components instead of building its own copy. Before writing markup or styles in a page, look for the kit component that already does it and extend it with a prop; a second hand-built version is a bug. The side panel that animated in but not out, while a separate skill panel did both, is the example.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 25 \u2014 A designer's install packs the whole tree, half-done server edits\u2026 \u2014 2026-09-25: Eames and Saul run python3 src/journal.py --root .journal upgrade after their viewer builds; it packs every file in src, so a server handler I was halfway through writing went live and raised on every PostToolUse hook. While designers work in parallel, keep server edits whole between tool calls (write and test in the scratchpad first), and reinstall after reverting anything.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 41 \u2014 Keep moving, run the whole suite before every commit, never wait \u2014 The full suite runs in about seven seconds: .venv/bin/python -m pytest -q --timeout=300 -n auto. Run it before every commit instead of picking tests by name. Group rows that sit in the same code into one sitting: write them all, test once, commit once. And never wait, not for a subagent, a build, or an answer you can carry on without. Dispatch it and keep working. If you truly are waiting on something, say so in the work log.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 30 \u2014 The tunler server refuses TLS for any subdomain without a tunnel \u2014 Seen 2026-10-04 in the server's docker logs (ssh root@tunler.jessegall.nl, container tunler): 'TLS handshake error ... host \"journal-probe.tunler.jessegall.nl\" not allowed'. A made-up subdomain never answers even when the server is healthy; probe https://tunler.jessegall.nl/ for the server itself. Root SSH to the server works.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 13 \u2014 This live session runs the installed copy in .journal/journal.pyz \u2014 The running journal (server, hooks, CLI) runs from .journal/journal.pyz with its viewer and skills in .journal/src, never from the repo. A change in the repo reaches it only through python3 src/journal.py --root .journal upgrade, which packs the zip again. A commit alone changes nothing that is running.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 33s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 23 \u2014 Every upgrade brings system sequences and their triggers in line\u2026 \u2014 install.py runs ship_sequences after the migrations on each upgrade, so features/sequences/shipped.py is the whole source: change its wording and the next upgrade updates every journal, no migration needed. Shipped rows carry system=True and are read-only for everyone but SYSTEM (controllers/base.py _shipped).", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "the log tag does this in one step \u2014 [!log:N] makes the turn itself the log entry; it runs only when it opens the last text of your turn", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 55 \u2014 Always dispatch Codex helpers on gpt-6-sol \u2014 The user's word, message 13431: switch the codex agents to GPT-6-Sol and make it their default. ~/.codex/config.toml names it as the default model too.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 34s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 31 \u2014 The overnight branch may be merged once every to-do is done and all\u2026 \u2014 Message 16886 (2026-10-06): the user said to keep working the to-do list on overnight-refactor; when every to-do item is finished, the whole suite passes and no part is left untested, the agent may merge it into main. This is the user's go for rule 57's 'before its pull request is approved'. Until all three hold, nothing of the branch goes to main except the hotfixes the user asks for.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "Code Commandments \u2014 before you commit \u2014 you've changed 4 judged files since the\u2026 \u2014 Code Commandments \u2014 before you commit: you've changed 4 judged files since the last commit. Consider running `commandments judge --changes` to confirm they conform, and fix any sin at its SOURCE (don't launder a finding with a default/cast/null-check). This is a one-time nudge for this batch \u2014 if you've already judged, or these changes aren't worth a scan, just say so and carry on.; rule 36 \u2014 Clean, DRY, idiomatic before it is committed, never after it is\u2026 \u2014 The user should never be the one who finds duplication, dead code, a clumsy name or a pattern the codebase does not use. Read the diff before every commit as a reviewer would, and fix what is not clean then, not in a follow-up after a complaint.; rule 46 \u2014 Only commit and push once the whole journal is proven to boot \u2014 Messages 2178 and 2179. A release that has not been started for real can crash every project that installs it, as 2.78.3 did for Codex and 2.84.0 did to project records. Before every commit and push: the full suite passes, including tests/test_it_boots.py, which installs a packed copy into a fresh project, launches Claude and Codex from it, writes a project record, upgrades again and checks the record survives. When a change touches launching, installing or upgrading, also start a real journal in a scratch project and close it properly afterwards, leaving no process behind.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 9 \u2014 Every public method on a controller becomes a journal command \u2014 The CLI is generated from the controllers: each public method of Controller, or of a typed controller, turns into journal . A helper added to the base class therefore becomes a command on every type \u2014 which is how journal handled and journal refuse came to exist, from the CRUD funnel and the refusal funnel. An internal helper on a controller is named with a leading underscore, as _shaped and _status already are, or it ships as a command nobody meant.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 40 \u2014 A feature is named for what it is, never for its machinery \u2014 Messages 599, 600 and 703. A feature is a capability the user would name and would think of switching off. File tracking, a write gate, a phrase bank, a tree diff are services used inside a feature, not features of their own: they live in the feature they serve. Before adding a directory under features/, say what the user would call it; if the answer names a mechanism, it belongs inside something else. Report 16 holds the grouping this implies.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "The machine is overloaded (load average over 100; the user's viewer takes 7 s to answer). From now on run the whole suite only through the shared lock and with 4 workers: lockf -k /private/tmp/aj-suite.lock .venv/bin/python -m pytest -q -p no:cacheprovider --timeout=600 -n 4. While iterating, run only the tests you touched, and the whole suite once before you commit.", "meta": {"from": "main"}} {"content": "The machine is overloaded (load average over 100; the user's viewer takes 7 s to answer). From now on run the whole suite only through the shared lock and with 4 workers: lockf -k /private/tmp/aj-suite.lock .venv/bin/python -m pytest -q -p no:cacheprovider --timeout=600 -n 4. While iterating, run only the tests you touched, and the whole suite once before you commit.", "meta": {"from": "main"}} {"content": "your command ran 33s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 24 \u2014 An answer followed by tool calls can be missing from Claude's\u2026 \u2014 Seen 2026-09-24 for messages 9391-9404: text blocks opening with [!reply:n] that were followed by tool calls never appeared in the session's jsonl (only thinking and tool_use rows did), so the journal never saw them and the replies were lost. When a turn goes on after answering, send the answer with journal message reply \"\" instead of the tag.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 49 \u2014 A dialog whose content grows keeps one fixed height, and its content\u2026 \u2014 Message 5361, after asking more than once: a dialog that shows output as it arrives (install, update, logs) opens at its final height and never jumps; only its content scrolls.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 54 \u2014 Settings and feature switches are read at boot and on change, never\u2026 \u2014 The user, message 13349: the application boots, determines every feature and setting once, and re-evaluates only when something changes, such as a setting or a plugin. Never lazy-load settings.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 30s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "work 1 in hand \u2014 Viewer test runner and its first tests \u2014 if this is not what you are doing, end it or park it and start the work you are in", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 42 \u2014 Every user-facing text passes the formatters before it leaves the\u2026 \u2014 Not only a brief. A title, an abstract, an outcome and every section body are read by a person, so each goes through the same formatters on its way to the viewer \u2014 chat turns, activity items, to-do rows, inspector pages, docs alike. One field formatted out of five is not a rule, it is an accident, and it is how a raw tag ended up in the activity list after the tags feature had been stripping them for weeks. When a new field carries words a person reads, it joins the list in the same place.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 34s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "fact 18 \u2014 cProfile inflates the slow-request profiles about tenfold \u2014 The faults feature writes a profile when a request passes its budget, and the profile is taken with cProfile, which adds per-call overhead. On 2026-09-22 /api/summary profiled at 58ms with 48ms inside Resource.fork's deep copy; with the profiler off the same call ran in 2 to 7ms. Read the profile for where the time goes in relative terms, then time the call with curl before changing anything.; fact 26 \u2014 Claude Code reads agent profiles when a session starts \u2014 Seen 2026-09-26: after the board-filler's profile in .claude/agents gained its steps and the Grep rule, dispatches from the running session still used the old profile (a 3.5-minute first question, shell grep refused); after the session restarted, the same request took 21 seconds with 4 calls. A change to an agent type reaches only sessions started after it is written.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "rule 43 \u2014 A request or hook over its budget is fixed before the next release \u2014 Comment 1151 on this rule. When the faults feature reports a request, a hook or a command slower than its budget, file it as a to-do at once. It does not jump ahead of the work in hand, but no version is published while one is still open: profile it, fix it, and verify the new time before the release goes out. The budget is 50ms, because everything runs locally against files.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 33s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "your command ran 32s in the foreground and was moved to the background \u2014 carry on with other work; you are told when it ends. Start a command you expect to take long in the background yourself", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "you ran the same check 3 times in a row\u2026 \u2014 if you are waiting for something to change, say journal work await \"\" and end your turn: you are asked to look again every five minutes, and a background command tells you itself when it ends. Keep checking only if each look moves the work on.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "Code Commandments \u2014 before you wrap up \u2014 you've changed 8 judged files since th\u2026 \u2014 Code Commandments \u2014 before you wrap up: you've changed 8 judged files since the last commit. Consider running `commandments judge --changes` to confirm they conform, and fix any sin at its SOURCE (don't launder a finding with a default/cast/null-check). This is a one-time nudge for this batch \u2014 if you've already judged, or these changes aren't worth a scan, just say so and carry on.", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "the viewer test run (tests/test_the_viewer.py) in the background came back\u2026", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "settings browser scenario run came back - python3 - <<'EOF'", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "chat etiquette - a line from the journal is an instruction, not a message\u2026 \u2014 a turn that only handles a journal line needs no words: act on it, or say once in the chat what you wait on, then carry on; what the user needs to know still goes to the chat; work 1 is still open \u2014 end it or park it before you stop: journal work end 1 --how \"\", or journal work park 1 \"\"", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "work 1 is still open \u2014 end it or park it before you stop: journal work end 1 --how \"\", or journal work park 1 \"\"", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "waiting: 1 unread todo 1", "meta": {"from": "journal"}} {"content": "work 1 is still open \u2014 end it or park it before you stop: journal work end 1 --how \"\", or journal work park 1 \"\"", "meta": {"from": "journal"}}