The Core Laws
No claim without a fresh look
Remembered state is not observed state. Before you believe it, and long before you repeat it, check.
It's running. It was sent. Nothing has changed. Each is a claim about the present state of the world, and the machine will make every one of them from memory, in perfect confidence, without looking. Memory is where these claims go to die: state changes behind your back, dashboards go stale, the thing that was true an hour ago is the thing that bites you now.
The rule is one hop long: look, then speak. A ten-second probe of the actual thing, not its status page, not its log, not the proxy that vouches for it, settles what no amount of remembered certainty can. And the same rule binds you upward: the number you forward without checking becomes your number, with your name on it, the moment you hit forward.
How to practice it
Probe before claiming.
Before any statement about current state, yours or the machine's, take the fresh look. Ten seconds of checking beats an hour of being confidently wrong.
Check the thing, not its proxy.
A green dashboard is a claim about the dashboard. Ask the actual system, walk the actual path, open the actual file.
Verify before you forward.
Repeating an unchecked claim launders it with your credibility. Check it at the source before it travels under your name.
Mark the unverified.
When you genuinely can't check, say the word unverified out loud. The label costs nothing; the unlabeled guess costs trust.
Deep scripture: Codeuteronomy VIII — No claim about the world stands without a fresh observation