# The rules
| `pipe-to-tail` | `deny` | a mutating command whose status is swallowed by a pipe |
| `bare-stash-pop` | `observe` | `git stash pop` with no ref, where `refs/stash` is shared across worktrees |
| `gh-pr-merge-auto` | `observe` | `--auto` on a repository with no required checks, which merges immediately |
| `no-verify` | `observe` | turning the whole commit gate off rather than one check |
| `git-add-broad` | `observe` | staging the tree instead of the change |
| `stale-base` | `advise` | a branch or worktree started from a checkout the remote has moved past |
| `poll-blank-verdict` | `observe` | a wait that stops on any value but the one it names, so a failed lookup's empty string reads as the answer |
| `forge-status-stale-row` | `observe` | keeping the first row of a commit's append-only `/statuses` list, so a stale `pending` reads as the present and the wait never ends |
| `stdin-hang` | `observe` | a command that will read standard input with nothing on it, which blocks silently until the tool's clock runs out |
| `glob-in-flag-value` | `advise` | an unquoted glob inside a flag value (`--include=*.ts`), which zsh expands — or fails on — before the program sees it |
| `glob-no-match` | `advise` | an unquoted glob operand that matches nothing, which under zsh aborts the clause before it starts while a later clause reports success |
| `equals-separator` | `observe` | a bare word beginning with `=` (`echo ===`, `[ x == y ]`), which zsh reads as a command lookup and whose failure aborts the whole command list |
| `unsplit-expansion` | `observe` | an unquoted `$var` under `set --` or `for … in`, which zsh leaves as one word: the positionals or the loop get the whole string and the command runs wrong while reporting success |
| `path-operand-missing` | `advise` | a read of a path that is not there — under the grep shim a warning in mid-stream, for the coreutils one line and carry on — which the chain then reports as success |
| `stat-bsd-format` | `advise` | `stat -f '%…'` on GNU stat (or `-c` on BSD), which prints a filesystem report where a timestamp was wanted |
| `whole-file-dump` | `advise` | a file poured whole into the tool result by `cat`/`sed -n`/`head` — 31% of all result bytes measured — where the Read tool would have windowed it |
| `file-reread` | `advise` | a Read, or a `cat`, of a file this session already has in context and that is unchanged on disk since — answered from the session's own record, not the command |
| `persisted-output-dump` | `advise` | reading back whole a tool result the harness saved to a file for being too large, paying for it twice |
`amont-agent rules` prints this with each rule's measured firing rate.
## Why only one of them denies
`pipe-to-tail` blocks because seven consecutive weeks of measurement showed no
downward trend while every other habit halved. That is the bar: a rule earns
`deny` from your own transcripts, not from an argument about how bad the
mistake is. See [measuring and graduating](measuring.md).
`stale-base` advises from the start because it refuses nothing, speaks only
after measuring a real gap, and names a failure no correcting loop can see —
**nothing fails when you build on stale code.** The work is correct against
the code it can see, and the conflict arrives later, from somewhere else.
## `pipe-to-tail` in full
```sh
A pipeline's exit status is its **last** command's. `tail` succeeds at tailing
an error message, so a rejected push, a push killed by a timeout, and a push
that never left the machine all report success — and the trimming discards the
error text, so the failure is silent in both channels.
The remedy the rule prints is not "don't use tail": it is to run the mutating
command on its own, read its output afterwards, and then verify the *effect*
(`git ls-remote origin refs/heads/<branch>`) rather than the exit code.
`set -o pipefail` first, or writing to a file and tailing the file, are also
accepted — the rule fires on the shape, and the reason names all three ways
out.
## Asking about one command
```sh
No stdin, no session, no journal entry — just the rules over one string, with
whatever they would have said.