The zc_search ## Temporal computation block is now framed as a cross-check aid rather than a command.
Before: "deterministic — trust these numbers over mental date math"
After: "deterministic date-math aid — cross-check against the dated sources below"
Why (measured): an apples-to-apples LongMemEval run (frontier model as both answerer and judge — Zep's methodology) showed the old commanding phrasing OVER-STEERED capable models: temporal-reasoning scored 100% with the block reframed as advisory vs 73% with the old command. The precomputed date math still renders (it genuinely helps weaker local generators); it just no longer orders the model to override its own reasoning. Verified end-to-end via a fresh MCP render probe.
Also folds in bench-harness measurement tooling used to produce the finding (generator-tier context assembly, opt-in recency backfill, an OpenAI apples-to-apples path gated on a local BENCH_OPENAI_KEY, and BENCH_SKIP_INGEST). Benchmark result files remain local.