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Queue the rule against agent text carrying the maintainer's own data - #530

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ptr727 merged 1 commit into
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feature/no-real-data-in-agent-text
Aug 3, 2026
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Queue the rule against agent text carrying the maintainer's own data#530
ptr727 merged 1 commit into
developfrom
feature/no-real-data-in-agent-text

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@ptr727

@ptr727 ptr727 commented Aug 3, 2026

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Queues a rule the fleet does not currently state. An agent illustrating a review finding on a downstream pull request quoted real paths from the maintainer's own filesystem, which carried family members' names, into a comment on a public repository. Nothing about the finding required them.

The entry records what the rule has to say, not merely that one is owed, because three things about it are easy to get wrong.

Synthetic evidence is the better evidence. It reads like a concession and is not one. A filename constructed to contain a newline demonstrates a newline defect exactly, and any reader can re-run it. A real photo library proves the same thing and can never be re-run by anyone, so the substitution costs nothing and gains reproducibility.

The exposure is one-way. A comment on a public repository is fetched, cached, and indexed the moment it posts, so editing it afterwards is mitigation rather than a fix. What to do about one that has already landed is the maintainer's call, not the agent's.

No checker closes this. A pattern finds an absolute home path or a drive letter, and that subset is worth gating as a floor. The data that leaked here was name-shaped, and a name is not pattern-detectable: a grep over the offending pull request for path-shaped strings returns nothing while the names sit in plain sight. A gate written for this must be understood as catching the easy half, or it becomes the reassurance that stops anyone looking.

Scoped fleet-wide rather than to the hub, since every repo in the fleet is public and each is worked by agents reading the same carried rules.

This pull request queues the work. It does not write the rule, which belongs in a carried GOVERNANCE.md section and re-vendors across the fleet when it lands.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

An agent illustrating a review finding quoted real paths from the
maintainer's filesystem, carrying family members' names, into a comment
on a public repository. The finding needed none of them.

The entry records what the rule has to say rather than only that one is
owed. Synthetic evidence is the better evidence and not a concession,
since a constructed filename demonstrates a filename defect and a reader
can re-run it. The exposure is one-way, so an edit afterwards mitigates
rather than fixes, and that call is the maintainer's. And no checker
closes it, because the data that leaked was name-shaped: a path pattern
finds nothing on the offending comment while the names sit in plain
sight, so a gate over paths is a floor rather than an answer.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings August 3, 2026 14:14

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Pull request overview

This PR updates the project backlog to queue a fleet-wide governance rule about avoiding maintainer-environment data (e.g., real local filesystem paths that may embed personal names) in any agent-authored text on public surfaces.

Changes:

  • Adds a TODO item to draft a GOVERNANCE.md rule requiring synthetic/representative example data instead of observed maintainer-environment data, and outlines key points the eventual wording must cover.

@ptr727
ptr727 merged commit c225b12 into develop Aug 3, 2026
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@ptr727
ptr727 deleted the feature/no-real-data-in-agent-text branch August 3, 2026 14:18
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2 participants