Extending the Skill-Use mechanical checks, per the baseline's own next step,
found something bigger than a missing check.
THE DEFECT
`workspace-repo-commit-protocol` told agents that `/workspace/repo` was "the
ONLY path where source-modifying edits belong". The platform mounts and
advertises `/mission/repo` — 26 references in the code; `/workspace/repo`
appears in none of them.
The skill is bound on 29 role bindings and was delivered TWICE in the run
already measured, so an agent received the real path in its tool preamble
and a skill contradicting it a few hundred tokens later, in one prompt. An
agent that obeyed the skill wrote source into a directory nothing collects
— the phase then delivers nothing, and looks like an agent that did no work.
The same skill instructed `file_read` / `file_write` / `shell`: ZeroClaw's
names, the exact ones `phase_task_text` was fixed to stop advertising after
five agents on a single mission spent 7.4k tokens describing the mismatch
instead of working. The prompt was corrected and the skill kept saying it.
Rewritten against what the code actually does, including the repo-less case
(`/mission/repo` exists, is collected as artifacts, has nothing to push).
THE CLASS, AND THE GUARD
The skills were never checked against the platform they describe. Nothing
compared them, so a skill could contradict the prompt it ships inside and
stay that way indefinitely — the same shape as PLAN_COMPLETE being
documented and never implemented.
Two tests in `skills_loader::contradiction_tests` now hold it: no skill may
name a repo path the platform does not mount, and none may instruct a tool
the agent's subprocess does not expose. The second matches backticked
instructions and skips corrective lines, so a skill may still WARN against
the wrong names — as this one now does. Both negative-controlled by
restoring the old wording.
AND THE CHECK THAT STARTED IT
`workspace-repo-commit-protocol` now has a Boundary check: writing outside
`/mission/repo` fails, and the message names the consequence — a phase that
delivers nothing — rather than just the wrong path.
docs/SKILL-USE-BASELINE.md records this as the fourth defect the
measurement found, and corrects the "next unit of work" note now that this
one is done.
Full workspace suite green: 106 binaries, zero build errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
