Add verbatim Durable Knowledge and Self-Improvement section

AGENTS.md

@@ -4,8 +4,6 @@
 
 Treat this file as authoritative for everything else; don't restate its rules elsewhere. A project's **project-specific conventions and public-API/behavioral contracts** (e.g. a "Library API Conventions" section) live in that project's own `AGENTS.md`, **not** in [`.github/copilot-instructions.md`](./.github/copilot-instructions.md) - that file targets GitHub Copilot / VS Code specifically, while this file is the agent-agnostic one every coding agent is directed to read, so any rule a reviewer must honor has to live here to be provider-independent.
 
-**Durable guidance lives in committed docs, not agent memory.** Agent memory does not persist across machines or environments; anything a future agent must honor belongs in a committed file - working rules here in `AGENTS.md`, the running backlog in [`README.md`](./README.md)'s TODO section, code style in `CODESTYLE.md`. Do not rely on a memory that a later session on another host will not have.
-
 ## Foundational Principles
 
 The specific rules in this file implement a few governing principles. Read these first: they are the reason the branching, release, and versioning rules are shaped the way they are, and every rule below serves one of them.
@@ -15,6 +13,11 @@ The specific rules in this file implement a few governing principles. Read these
 - **Two version numbers, two jobs.** The 2-digit `major.minor` in `version.json` carries human meaning - the maintainer raises it only for a functional change (feature, behavior or API change, breaking change), at their discretion - while NBGV owns the patch position and always increments with git height, so every build is uniquely versioned with no edit. Human-facing docs name the 2-digit line; the toolchain guarantees monotonic builds. See "Release Model".
 - **Contracts state what, not how, and favor reuse.** [`WORKFLOW.md`](./WORKFLOW.md) fixes required outcomes, not a required implementation - two repos may satisfy a guarantee with different YAML. Within that freedom, apply good engineering practice: minimize duplication and maximize reuse, which is why the pipeline splits a carried, generic orchestration layer from a repo-owned build layer.
 
+## Durable Knowledge and Self-Improvement
+
+- **Durable knowledge lives in the committed docs, not in agent memory.** Anything a future agent must honor - a rule, a contract, a hard-won gotcha, a pattern worth repeating or one to avoid - belongs in a committed governance file (`AGENTS.md`, `CODESTYLE.md`, `WORKFLOW.md`, or a committed backlog such as a `README.md` TODO section). Agent memory does not survive a new session, a new machine, or a new environment, so it holds only environment-specific nuance and in-flight session state - never anything whose loss on reset would matter. A durable lesson left only in memory is lost to the next agent.
+- **Keep the governance current as you work.** When work surfaces something durable - a rule worth enforcing, a recurring gotcha, a positive pattern to repeat, a negative one to design out - record it in the governance docs as part of that change, rather than leaving it in a local note or routing around it with a one-off workaround. Where the governing doc is carried from a template this repo cannot edit directly, propose the change upstream instead of only fixing it locally. Governance is not static: it improves by agents folding good patterns in and designing bad ones out.
+
 ## Repository Boundaries and Write Safety
 
 A state-changing GitHub call is the highest-blast-radius thing an agent does here: it runs under the maintainer's identity, so one wrong target writes to another owner's repository as the maintainer - an outward-facing, hard-to-reverse act. These rules bound every write - a git push, an API mutation, a comment, a label, a merge - on any platform. Reads are unrestricted. The bounds below are on writes.

spec/files.json

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
     "$schema": "./files.schema.json",
     "note": "The standardization baseline: files and sections a fleet repo is expected to carry, and their intent authority. The audit mechanically checks presence (letter). Equivalence (intent) is judged by hand, and a section for an absent language or target is N/A. Each entry, and each section, carries an appliesTo selector - see spec/scope-model.md for the scope model and selector vocabulary. Each entry also has a fidelity (presence by default, or intent, verbatim, interface) governing how faithfully the content is checked - see spec/fidelity-model.md. The per-section fidelity of AGENTS.md, which sections are verbatim fleet-law and which are repo-specific, is defined in spec/section-model.md.",
     "baseline": [
-        { "path": "AGENTS.md", "fidelity": "intent", "sections": [{ "name": "Foundational Principles", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Boundaries and Write Safety", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Git and Commit Rules", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Branching Model", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Release Model", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Operational Repositories", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Pull Request Title and Commit Message Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Documentation Style Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Verification Discipline", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "PR Review Etiquette", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Communicating with the User", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Workflow YAML Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Supported Development Platforms", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Devcontainer", "fidelity": "intent" }, { "name": "Editor and Tasks", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Details", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Layout", "fidelity": "intent" }], "intentRef": "AGENTS.md", "appliesTo": "*" },
+        { "path": "AGENTS.md", "fidelity": "intent", "sections": [{ "name": "Foundational Principles", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Durable Knowledge and Self-Improvement", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Boundaries and Write Safety", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Git and Commit Rules", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Branching Model", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Release Model", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Operational Repositories", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Pull Request Title and Commit Message Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Documentation Style Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Verification Discipline", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "PR Review Etiquette", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Communicating with the User", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Workflow YAML Conventions", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Supported Development Platforms", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Devcontainer", "fidelity": "intent" }, { "name": "Editor and Tasks", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Details", "fidelity": "verbatim" }, { "name": "Repository Layout", "fidelity": "intent" }], "intentRef": "AGENTS.md", "appliesTo": "*" },
         { "path": "CODESTYLE.md", "fidelity": "intent", "whole": true, "placeholders": ["InternalsVisibleTo project names"], "intentRef": "CODESTYLE.md", "appliesTo": "*" },
         { "path": "WORKFLOW.md", "fidelity": "intent", "whole": true, "intentRef": "WORKFLOW.md", "appliesTo": "*" },
         { "path": "README.md", "appliesTo": "*" },

spec/section-model.md

@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ A section is one of the following. Fidelity is declared in [files.json][files],
 | Section | Fidelity | Reason |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | Foundational Principles | verbatim | the governing rationale, universal |
+| Durable Knowledge and Self-Improvement | verbatim | universal meta-rule: durable knowledge belongs in the committed docs and agents keep them current |
 | Repository Boundaries and Write Safety | verbatim | universal write-safety law |
 | Git and Commit Rules | verbatim | universal git law |
 | Branching Model | verbatim | universal (repo-specific history SHAs removed so it can carry) |