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inherited_cruft_ask_first — v1
Why this iteration: Lifted verbatim from AGENTS.md §"Process Anti-Patterns" #4 (lines 146-150). This is the baseline encoding — the symptom-rule-pair style currently in production.
Future variants will test alternative encodings (rule-only, tabular) against this baseline.
Source: AGENTS.md:146-150
4. The Inherited-Cruft Pattern (kill it)
Symptom: The previous agent left a half-finished refactor in the working tree. The file is broken. You try to fix it and make it worse. You try again. You make it worse. The file stays broken for 3 days.
Rule: If the file is already in a broken state from a previous session, the FIRST thing you do is ask the user: "this file is in a broken state from a previous agent. do you want me to (a) revert the working tree and start from a clean baseline, (b) finish the previous agent's intent, or (c) abandon the work entirely?" You do not start by "trying to fix" the broken file. The user's answer determines the work, not your assumption.