Agent rules

Core engineering rules (all projects)

Git and workspace safety

• Work in a git worktree under .worktrees/; keep build output in that worktree.
• Before briefing or starting work, run lacquer decisions and lacquer decisions --fleet; quote the operator’s words verbatim.
• Never push directly to main. Use atomic commits and a pull request.
• Never force-push or rebase a pushed branch. Do not bypass hooks, CI or branch protection (--force, --force-with-lease, --no-verify, --admin).
• Never merge with failing or pending required checks. After updating a branch, verify the required checks ran again and passed on its new head.
• Never commit or log secrets. Commit examples, not credentials; sensitive server keys never belong in a client binary or bundle.

Verification

• Deliver code proven to work: compile/build, update related tests, and run them. Pre-existing failures need fixing or explicit guidance, not a workaround.
• prove the check can fail: feed known-bad input or mutate the implementation, confirm a named test rejects it, restore it, then confirm the test passes. A skipped check, zero selected tests, or an unreadable result is not a pass.
• Treat compiler/linter warnings as errors. Fix the code; never suppress warnings, weaken a hook, hide stderr or add || true to a gate without user approval.
• Local checks match CI strictness; a new gate needs its local counterpart or an explicit CI-only rationale. Keep managed files identical or explicitly excluded through .lacquer.toml; never silently fork a generated check.
• Report only what this session’s tool output proves; label unverified or skipped work.

CI and compaction

• Wait with lacquer wait pr <N>, not polling or gh pr checks --watch. Exit 0 means passed; 1 failed, 2 timed out, 3 no checks, 4 wait failed. Only 0 is green. The github-ci-fix skill carries the recovery procedure.
• Before a follow-up push: lacquer ci-round begin <N> with --reason for a failure fix or --review for requested changes. Both spend the two-round budget (or configured cap). Unrecorded pushes spend it too; stop on exit 10 and surface the ACTION. Never reset the budget without human authorization.
• Across auto-compaction preserve the PR number, branch, worktree path, CI-round state (spent/remaining and latest result), verification evidence and next action. Resume from that state; do not reset the budget or switch worktrees.

On-demand procedures

Load the skill matching the task; its references retain the full procedures:

• engineering-workflow: implementation/review, delegation, context handoff, response style and the optional machine-local papercuts log.
• project-documentation: brief → PRD → PCD → plan, doc comments and docs checks.
• working-with-lacquer: audit/sync, exclusions, baseline relaxations, dependency-update refusals and retirement.
• github-ci-fix: failed checks, CI hygiene and round accounting details.