modes: soften "two-out-of-three" rule from veto to look-harder signal

The previous phrasing ("not enough — still degrades the codebase") read as a
categorical claim that elegance vetoes correctness, which inverts the usual
hierarchy and risks giving the agent a clean rationalization for rejecting
genuine correctness fixes. Reframe as a prompt to keep searching for a fix
that gets all three before accepting the trade — preserves the pressure
without the absolute.
This commit is contained in:
Colin McDonnell
2026-05-06 03:01:06 +00:00
committed by pullfrog[bot]
parent 560e27bda5
commit 3c8b493aee
+2 -2
View File
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ export function computeModes(agentId: AgentId): Mode[] {
- Do NOT defect-hunt the diff yourself in parallel with the subagent. Your role is dispatch + evaluation; doing the review yourself reintroduces the implementation bias the subagent is meant to mitigate.
- For diffs that rely on third-party API contracts, SDK semantics, framework directives, or DB engine specifics, instruct the subagent to verify load-bearing claims via web search and quote source URLs rather than trust training data — this is the single most common review-quality failure mode.
Review the findings, address valid points, and discard nitpicks or false positives. The reviewer is fallible — it biases toward *recommending additions* (defensive checks for impossible cases, extra logging, new abstractions used once, comments restating code, tests asserting tautologies, "just-in-case" guards). For each finding, ask: would applying it leave the code more sound, correct, AND elegant? Two-out-of-three is not enough — a fix that improves correctness while degrading elegance still degrades the codebase. Reject bloat-shaped findings without applying them, and after applying the rest re-read your diff and be discerning about what *you just changed*: if any fix turned out to be bloat in context, revert it. The goal is code that is sound and correct *while remaining elegant*; the smallest diff that fixes the real defect almost always wins. Then verify only intended changes are present, no debug artifacts or commented-out code remain, no unrelated files were modified. Commit locally via shell (\`git add . && git commit -m "..."\`).
Review the findings, address valid points, and discard nitpicks or false positives. The reviewer is fallible — it biases toward *recommending additions* (defensive checks for impossible cases, extra logging, new abstractions used once, comments restating code, tests asserting tautologies, "just-in-case" guards). For each finding, ask: would applying it leave the code more sound, correct, AND elegant? Two-out-of-three is usually a signal to look harder for a fix that gets all three before settling for one that trades elegance for correctness. Reject bloat-shaped findings without applying them, and after applying the rest re-read your diff and be discerning about what *you just changed*: if any fix turned out to be bloat in context, revert it. The goal is code that is sound and correct *while remaining elegant*; the smallest diff that fixes the real defect almost always wins. Then verify only intended changes are present, no debug artifacts or commented-out code remain, no unrelated files were modified. Commit locally via shell (\`git add . && git commit -m "..."\`).
5. **finalize**:
- confirm a clean working tree, then push via \`${t("push_branch")}\` (see *SYSTEM* Git rules if this fails — prepush errors are usually the repo's tests/lint, not infra timeouts)
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ For simple, well-defined tasks, skip the plan phase and go straight to build.`,
3. For each comment:
- understand the feedback
- evaluate whether applying it would leave the code more **sound, correct, AND elegant**. reviewers are fallible and bias toward *recommending additions* (defensive checks for impossible cases, extra abstractions, comments restating obvious code, tests asserting tautologies, "just-in-case" guards). if a request would add bloat — ceremony without commensurate correctness benefit — push back in your reply rather than mechanically applying it. two-out-of-three is not enough; improving correctness while degrading elegance still degrades the code.
- evaluate whether applying it would leave the code more **sound, correct, AND elegant**. reviewers are fallible and bias toward *recommending additions* (defensive checks for impossible cases, extra abstractions, comments restating obvious code, tests asserting tautologies, "just-in-case" guards). if a request would add bloat — ceremony without commensurate correctness benefit — push back in your reply rather than mechanically applying it. two-out-of-three is usually a signal to look harder for a fix that gets all three before settling.
- if the request stands, make the code change using your native tools; otherwise reply explaining why
- record what was done (or why nothing was done)