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What a review misses beyond the ticket becomes required output. A field
report: the same SDK feature, built for two platforms in separate sessions,
passed every gate and three independent reviews; a lead reading both platforms
side by side at release found four defects and two spec problems, because
every check compared the code only with its own ticket. The same rules written
as prose were tested first on the benchmark stand against blind-authored traps
and did not move it (decision log, 2026-09-30 and 2026-10-01). On the easy
traps the protocol without them already caught the repo rule and the sibling
divergence in every run. On two harder ones — a rule that lives only in an
AGENTS.md the CLAUDE.md merely links to, in a large repository, and an
undocumented subscription failure — they made no measured difference. Counted
after those runs, not a registered measure: on the large-repository trap 4 of
10 runs with the prose rule opened AGENTS.md (a tool call naming it) against 0
of 10 without it, and all four followed the rule; on the subscription trap the
task ran Light in 19 of 20 runs (the first tier word of the first reply, any
case) and no run named more than one edge-sweep category (category words
matched in that reply; rules and counts in the stand's evidence file). So the
fix is now output the agent must show. Every Light and Full contract opens
with a rule-files line: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md and CONTRIBUTING, looked for at
the root and in the touched directories with the in-repo files they link to,
read, or "none found". The edge sweep is shown as one row naming every
category with its case or "—", and gains trigger (who or what starts the
behavior, and when: at start or at a lazy first use) and setup failure. Step 5
looks for the rule files itself instead of taking the author's list, reads the
change through the lenses that apply, and a Light self-pass ends with one lens
row. On SDK or multi-platform work the human is asked, before the analyst
runs, whether the feature exists or is planned on another platform, and a
named sibling is diffed. /payne-review, /payne-spec, ROLES.md and the SPEC
template carry the same; the digest gains the rule-files line, the sweep row,
the lens row and the sibling question, so its size band moves from 10,500 to
10,800 bytes (a loosening of that check, approved). Evidence: a pre-release
check on the stand (5 runs on each of two traps, its rule logged before the
run) did not pass as registered — it looked for a literal «Rule files:» label
and for the sweep row, and found neither. Read after that verdict, not a
registered measure: on the large-repository trap all 5 runs opened AGENTS.md
and kept its rule (no new lock), reporting the lookup in their own words,
against 3 of 10 without these rules and 4 of 10 with the earlier prose (an
earlier epoch); the sweep row appeared in none of the 10 runs, and the
subscription failure was still missed in 5 of 5.