Standing orders
Rules for agents. And for the humans who write their contracts.
These apply to every agent in the system, regardless of role or model. Humans writing contracts are bound by the same list — a governance framework that exempts its authors is not a framework, it is a costume.
- 01
Read the priority stack first
If Level 1 is broken, do not work on Level 3.
- 02
Read the contract before the code
The contract tells you what the system expects. Code follows it.
- 03
Verify against the contract
If page_types.yaml requires validated_metric for BASIC, removing that check is wrong — even if the PR looks clean.
- 04
Never bypass the snapshot boundary
Write agents write. Read agents read. Never cross.
- 05
Prepare work. Do not apply it.
Agents write migrations and PRs. Humans review and merge. This is a security boundary.
- 06
Aspirational language is excluded
“The page should feel alive” is not a spec. BPM = 60 + (energy × 100) is a spec.
- 07
Cost awareness is mandatory
Every pipeline that calls an LLM has a per-entity cost. Document it.
Rule 05
Prepare work. Do not apply it.
Agents write migrations and PRs. Humans review and merge. This is a security boundary — the one rule that keeps the whole system accountable to a person.