fix(skills): sharpen retro cardinal rule to name over-fitted machine changes (#422)

337840c84eaabe4f6dfcd9f34c52910b851d9e6c · 2026-04-30 01:04:37 -0700 · Trevin Chow

The original wording only flagged direct printed-CLI edits. The harder
failure mode — proposing a machine change whose value is unique to the
CLI that just shipped — wasn't called out, even though the rest of the
skill's machinery (name three APIs, strip API-specific details) is built
to catch exactly that. Updated wording names both failure modes so the
mental model matches what the skill actually enforces.

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Files touched

M skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md

Diff

commit 337840c84eaabe4f6dfcd9f34c52910b851d9e6c
Author: Trevin Chow <trevin@trevinchow.com>
Date:   Thu Apr 30 01:04:37 2026 -0700

    fix(skills): sharpen retro cardinal rule to name over-fitted machine changes (#422)
    
    The original wording only flagged direct printed-CLI edits. The harder
    failure mode — proposing a machine change whose value is unique to the
    CLI that just shipped — wasn't called out, even though the rest of the
    skill's machinery (name three APIs, strip API-specific details) is built
    to catch exactly that. Updated wording names both failure modes so the
    mental model matches what the skill actually enforces.
    
    Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md b/skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md
index 00c884bb..31f45646 100644
--- a/skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/printing-press-retro/SKILL.md
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ different PRs.
 
 ## Cardinal rules
 
-- The retro is about the Printing Press, not the printed CLI. Do not propose fixes to one specific generated CLI.
+- The retro proposes Printing Press changes that help multiple printed CLIs. Don't propose direct edits to the one CLI that just shipped, and don't propose machine changes whose value is unique to this CLI's quirks — those are printed-CLI fixes wearing a generator costume.
 - **Never upload un-scrubbed artifacts.** All artifacts go through the secrets scrub before upload.
 - **Never modify source directories.** Manuscripts and library directories are read-only. Scrub operations work on temporary copies.
 - **Never skip the secrets scrub,** even if the generation pipeline already ran one. Defense in depth.

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