docs(research): non-goals reassessment + cohort positioning + ship sequence (2026-05)

.agents/lessons.md

@@ -13,3 +13,5 @@ Each entry is a single bullet: `- **<topic>** — <lesson>`. Newest entries at t
 - **backticks inside SQL or help-text template literals** — never put a literal backtick inside a `` `...` `` template-literal string. `db.ts` SQL DDL strings (multi-line CREATE TABLE templates) and `printQueryCmdHelp()` (multi-line help text) are both `` `...` `` template literals; an inner backtick — typically a Markdown-style code-fence around a flag like `` `--full` `` — terminates the literal early and the parser blows up several lines later with cryptic "expected `,` or `)`" errors. **Use plain prose in those strings** (`--full` not `` `--full` ``), or escape (`` \` ``) if you really need the character. Hit twice (B.7 + B.6 PR #30); the lesson is general — applies to any TS template literal that gets pasted prose later, not just SQL / help text.
 - **STOP-before-Grep applies to symbol lookups too** — `Grep` for symbol names like `printQueryResult`, `getCurrentCommit`, `dropAll` violates the [`codemap` rule](rules/codemap.md). The codemap query `SELECT file_path, line_start FROM symbols WHERE name = '<X>'` answers it faster and without scanning. Reach for `Grep` only when the question is content-shaped (regex over file bodies, finding pattern usages inside function bodies, etc.) — not when it's "where is X defined / who calls X / what does file Y export." This was a PR #30 self-correction.
 - **PR / issue / comment bodies always go through a temp file** — never pass markdown bodies via shell heredoc to `gh pr create --body "$(cat <<'EOF'…)"` / `gh pr edit --body …` / `gh pr comment --body …` / `gh issue create --body …` / `gh api` `--field body=…`. Backticks inside the heredoc (every code span and code fence) get shell-escaped to `\`` and render literally on GitHub — every recipe id, file path, flag, SQL fragment, and code fence in the rendered body comes out as `\`coverage\``instead of`coverage`. Pattern: write the body to a temp file (`Write`to`/tmp/pr-<n>-body.md`), pass `--body-file /tmp/pr-<n>-body.md`, then delete the temp file. Cost is one extra tool call; saves redoing every PR body that has more than a few backticks. Hit on PR #57 — final body was a wall of `\`` artifacts until rewritten via temp file.
+- **Never commit absolute local user paths** — no `/Users/<name>/…`, `/home/<name>/…`, `~/…`, or `file:///` URIs in any tracked doc, code, comment, or PR body. Reasons: (1) leaks the maintainer's directory structure / username to public mirrors; (2) every other contributor's paths differ — the reference is dead on their machine; (3) a `git clone` of someone else's machine isn't a fact we can cite as a "source for deep-dives" — public upstream URLs are. Pattern: cite `https://github.com/<org>/<repo>` (with optional `/tree/<sha>/<path>`) for upstream sources; use repo-relative paths (`docs/foo.md`, `src/bar.ts`) for in-tree references. Hit on PR #58 first draft — referenced the local fallow clone path in the research note before the user caught it.
+- **Prescriptive research notes pin every concrete claim before recommending a ship sequence** — when a research/plan-shape doc proposes work (effort estimates, capability inventories, "we already do X" framing), every concrete claim needs a `file:line` / `codemap query` / `rg` / `--recipes-json` reference a reviewer can re-run. Reasoning-from-substrate intuition without pinning ships errors: "the AST walker already counts nodes" / "fan-in detects orphans" / "the `re_export_source` column doesn't exist" — all real errors caught on PR #58 by triangulating against the codebase. Don't ship a peer / parallel "descriptive baseline" doc to triangulate against (Rule 1 violation — it duplicates `architecture.md` / `db.ts` / `--recipes-json`); instead, either (a) pin claims in the prescriptive doc itself, or (b) self-audit by re-running every claim against the canonical home before committing. Either path beats the "dual descriptive + prescriptive doc" pattern on docs-governance grounds.