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FlintFlintby Torch
← LevelsBuilder · B13

The file that is confidently wrong

Build-along · ~12 min at your own keyboard

A folder tells the AI nothing about whether its contents still hold. A path asserts authority either way, so a rule you changed in April keeps getting read as current in August, in full voice, from a file you forgot you wrote. Nothing in the structure will warn you, and the model won't doubt it, because you're the one who put it there. The only fix is mechanical: when you retire a rule, write down the old wording, then go looking for it. The old wording is the search string — which is why writing it down is the whole trick. Do this the first time you change a rule, not later, because later is exactly when you'll no longer remember what the old version said.

The long version: Retiring stale rules ↗

Mac: Mac: in Terminal run grep -rn "old wording" . --exclude=retired.md --exclude-dir=archive to list every active file and line.

Windows: Windows: in PowerShell run Get-ChildItem -Recurse -File -Exclude retired.md | Where-Object { $_.FullName -notmatch '\\archive\\' } | Select-String "old wording" to list every active file and line.

Do this

0/5

Checkpoints

  • ▸You should now see retired.md with the old wording copied verbatim, a date and what is true now.
  • ▸You should now see a list of every file and line containing the old wording.
  • ▸You should now see at least one hit you did not expect.
  • ▸You should now see all hits fixed and a repeat reminder set.
The three ways this goes wrong
  • The search finds nothing. — Check you copied the old wording exactly. A paraphrase will not match.
  • The search keeps matching retired.md or old archives. — Exclude them from the search. They're supposed to hold the old wording. Active files should return nothing.
  • The sweep happens once and never again. — Set a calendar reminder or a scheduled task on the same day.

Share what happened

Paste your retired.md entry with both old and new wording, the search you ran, the hit list before, and the hit list after the fix. Say which hit surprised you.

Strip API keys, passwords, and tokens before you paste. Swap them for [KEY].

🔒 Don't paste confidential, personal-health, or payment info.