diff --git a/affordances/officer/core/starting-an-app.md b/affordances/officer/core/starting-an-app.md
index 9f8403c..e550384 100644
--- a/affordances/officer/core/starting-an-app.md
+++ b/affordances/officer/core/starting-an-app.md
@@ -19,6 +19,33 @@ shell; the SSH remote is already authenticated. If SSH is being refused for a st
 behind a proxy that rate-limits it — `ssh://git@100.64.0.13:10023/templates/template-react.git` is the same
 repository over the tailnet.
 
+### Cloning into the folder you are already in
+
+`git clone <url> .` works, **and only into a genuinely empty directory**. Verified: a single file makes it
+fail, and so does a single HIDDEN one —
+
+```
+fatal: destination path '.' already exists and is not an empty directory.
+```
+
+That is not an edge case here. A commander's directory holds `CLAUDE.md` and `state/`; a plugin's chat
+directory holds a `CLAUDE.md` the platform wrote. Cloning into either fails.
+
+When the directory is not empty, fetch instead of cloning:
+
+```bash
+git init -q .
+git remote add origin git@gitea.officer.dev:templates/template-react.git
+git fetch -q --depth 1 origin HEAD
+git checkout -q FETCH_HEAD -- .
+git reset -q
+```
+
+**This overwrites a file that collides, without asking.** Also verified: doing it in a directory that
+already had a `CLAUDE.md` replaced it with the template's. So look at what is there first, and if one of
+those files is the platform's — a commander's brief, a plugin's chat brief — move it aside and put it back,
+or clone somewhere else and copy in what you need.
+
 ## Then read its own documentation, and do step 1
 
 The template documents itself. **`README.md` step 1 is a rename** — everything project-specific is called