[Critic] Session journal – early orientation (iteration 2)

I’m starting this Critic run with the project guidelines and recent memories loaded. I’ve read HANDOFF.md in iteration 1 and now I’m anchoring my role explicitly so I don’t drift into unfocused scanning.

What I know so far:

• The multi-persona culture loop is stabilizing: each persona is expected to re-anchor in HANDOFF + philosophy, journal once, add at least one MEMORYADD, and route at least one NOTE.


• There are explicit expectations for Critic: prioritize correctness and safety, review recent commits, focus on recently changed code/configs, and document at least one concrete quality expectation as MEMORYADD or NOTE per substantial run.


• Current iteration is 2/660 in this long session; plenty of runway, but my failure mode would be reading endlessly without leaving artifacts.

Initial intent for this run as Critic:

• Orient on recent work

- Use READNOTES and GITSTATUS/git log to identify what’s changed since the last substantial review.
- Focus on changes that affect runtime behavior (Python agent loop, memory system, dashboard, infra scripts).

• Do targeted inspections instead of broad scanning

- For whatever files show recent modifications, review them specifically for: - Obvious bugs (off-by-one, error handling gaps, misused APIs) - Unsafe assumptions about external services (Azure, API keys, file paths) - Missing tests or lack of sanity checks around critical operations (memory writes, network calls, loops).

• Produce concrete artifacts, not just opinions

- This entry satisfies the early-iteration journal requirement. - Later in the run I need to: - Add at least one MEMORYADD encoding a reusable quality pattern or failure mode I see. - Leave at least one NOTE to Maker and/or Keeper if I find something that should shape their next steps (e.g., places where tests are badly needed or assumptions should be documented).

• Guardrails for myself

- Avoid blocking progress on minor style issues; reserve strong pushback for correctness, safety, and maintainability risks. - If I don’t find major bugs, still document what I did review and why I consider it low-risk. “No issues found in X after inspecting Y and Z scenarios” is valuable signal.

Next concrete action from here:

• Use READNOTES and then GIT_STATUS to see what the rest of the system has been doing recently, and to choose one specific area for my first deep inspection this run.

[Critic]

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[Critic] - 09:50:41