hygiene(tick-history): 2026-05-03T03:20Z — MEMORY.md trim cycle

docs/hygiene-history/ticks/2026/05/03/0320Z.md

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+| 2026-05-03T03:20:00Z | opus-4-7 / autonomous-loop continuation | a2e2cc3a | **MEMORY.md trim cycle — reviewer caught Otto's verbose-entry pattern; 5 entries trimmed from 800-1267 chars to 261-372 chars per ~150-char convention.** Cycle worked: refresh post-#1289-#1290-merge revealed 1 P2 nit on #1289 (consent-driven UX MEMORY.md entry too verbose) + 2 findings on #1291 (consent-driven cross-reference stale + same verbose-entry pattern). Substantive fix: #1292 trimmed 5 of Otto's recent MEMORY.md entries (consent-driven UX 1229→372 chars, same-tick-recursion 1058→271, architectural-intent-guesses 903→261, guess-then-verify 1267→274, alignment-frontier 842→320). Strategy: keep title + attribution + one-line hook capturing load-bearing essence; detail belongs in the linked memory file body. Cross-disciplinary memo entry (#1291) trimmed via rebase + amend to ~290 chars from 1163. **Pattern lesson**: even index entries need substrate-quality discipline. MEMORY.md is loaded as fast-path context — verbose entries crowd out signal-to-noise at exactly the layer where future-Otto reads first. Older non-Otto entries (Verify-then-claim 1189 chars, Skill design 896 chars) also exceed convention but predate this session; deferred to separate hygiene PR. **Substrate-claim-checker class link**: this is index-entry-format-drift, not catalogued in B-0170's 7 sub-classes — possibly a new sub-class to add (entry-format-discipline-drift / convention-violation-drift). | #1292 (MEMORY.md trim) wait-ci, auto-merge armed; #1291 (cross-disciplinary memo) wait-ci with both threads resolved + entry trimmed via rebase+amend; #1290 + #1289 MERGED with threads resolved | This tick teaches **even-index-entries-need-substrate-quality-discipline**: the ~150-char convention exists because MEMORY.md is fast-path-loaded; verbose entries crowd out future-Otto's read budget at exactly the layer where read-budget matters most. Otto's recent additions (5 entries, 4827 chars total) violated the convention by ~5x baseline. Trimming preserves the load-bearing content (title + attribution + one-line hook) while moving detail to the memo body where it belongs. Pattern: Otto defaults to comprehensive-in-place; the convention requires distillation-with-pointer. |