unhobblelisted

## Purpose As models improve, instruction surfaces written for older models become the ceiling: the model reads every standing line every session, and lines that correct mistakes it no longer makes cost context and constrain behavior. Official doctrine says cut any line whose removal would not cause mistakes ([best-practices](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/best-practices)); the strongest form of that test is empirical — delete, run, watch. This skill operationalizes the experiment its sibling `audit-instructions` can only reason about: instead of judging instruction *text* against doctrine, it measures the *model* against the repo with the instructions gone, and lets observed stumbles — not guesses — decide what returns. Rebuild rule (the whole contract in one line): **an instruction returns only after the bare model repeatedly stumbles on the same thing, and the re-added line cites the evidence.** ## When to run - A frontier model generation ships (the canonical trigger — instructions written for the previous generation are now suspect). - The repo's instruction surface has grown past the point anyone can say which lines still earn their cost. - On a cadence the operator chooses (see Cadence wiring below) — the talk-circuit heuristic is "every six months", but the model release is the real event. ## Scope and safety rails - **Project scope by default.** The experiment strips the *project's* surfaces: project CLAUDE.md / CLAUDE.local.md, `.claude/rules/`, `.cla