diff --git a/skills/commander/SKILL.md b/skills/commander/SKILL.md
index 4d91b89..6a797c4 100644
--- a/skills/commander/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/commander/SKILL.md
@@ -57,6 +57,27 @@ undo — a file created with `mkdir`, not a flag it sets itself.
 reading are the ones that are hard to reconstruct: what it skipped, what it could not verify, what it left
 outstanding. Ask for those explicitly or you will get a summary of what went right.
 
+# Writing the loop, if you are the one writing it
+
+The background-job dialog already sends the load-bearing mechanics — use the harness's own background
+mechanism, keep the wait in the shell, put the test into the shell condition, and **ask first if the
+condition is not completely clear** rather than arming a guess. That last one matters more than it reads: a
+wrong condition fails silently, either never firing or firing constantly, and it is found out days later.
+Arming late costs a minute.
+
+Four details the mechanics do not carry, each of which was learned by getting it wrong:
+
+- **`OFFICER_ROOT` is empty in the sidecar's environment.** Any path built from it resolves to `/data/...`,
+  so a lock file lands somewhere nothing reads and every release looks permanently undeployed. Set it
+  explicitly in the loop.
+- **Keep stderr out of a `--output-format=stream-json` pipe.** The CLI prints warnings there — a
+  connectors notice, among others — and one of them landing in the stream corrupts the first `jq` parse.
+  Redirect it to its own reader.
+- **`jq --unbuffered`**, or the job panel shows nothing for as long as the work takes and reads as hung.
+  A background job that produces no output is indistinguishable from a dead one.
+- **The claim goes before the spawn, not inside the action.** If the action claims its own work, an action
+  that dies before claiming has claimed nothing and will run again.
+
 # Things that are true and surprising
 
 - **Its cost line understates.** The recorded cost counts the commander's OWN turns — one row per `result`