manual_slop/conductor/directives/audit_walks_filesystem_fresh/v1.md

Audit scripts walk the filesystem fresh on every run — never pin to a historical snapshot

What it says

Audit scripts MUST walk the filesystem fresh on every invocation. They MUST NOT cache the file list, pin to a historical snapshot, or read from a stale index. Each run is a fresh walk of src/, tests/, scripts/, or whatever directory the audit targets.

Why

A stale audit misses regressions. If the audit reads from a cached file list (e.g., a JSON index written last session), it will not see files added, renamed, or deleted since. The audit's value is "what does the codebase look like RIGHT NOW." A historical snapshot answers the wrong question.

The pattern

# WRONG: read from a cached index
files = json.loads(Path("tests/artifacts/file_index.json").read_text())

# RIGHT: walk fresh
files = list(Path("src").rglob("*.py"))

See also

• conductor/directives/generation_script_walks_filesystem_fresh_each_run — the same rule for generation/index scripts
• conductor/directives/audit_script_as_gate — the --strict gate companion