put the rules where they are guaranteed to arrive

Three intakes in a row opened with a five-bullet audit, each one different, and
every rule written to stop that lived in the Commanders skill. The skill was
never read: zero Skill calls, zero mentions, in the whole session. What tells a
commander to read it is the preamble, and the preamble cannot exist on the first
turn — no row and no transcript id yet — which is the one turn this is about.

So turn one has been the model's default behaviour throughout. That explains the
length and it explains the variance, which is the more useful half: same prompt,
same directory, wildly different openings, because nothing in the prompt said
what the opening should be.

The brief is the prompt, so it always arrives. It now carries the constraint —
two sentences and one question, no headings or bullets or paths or hashes, no
"Oriented", no claiming to have verified — and tells it to read the skill for
everything else. The constraint is on what it says, not on what it does; reading
as long as it likes was never the problem.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/CommandHQ/CommandHqDetail.tsx

@@ -85,8 +85,15 @@ const startBrief = (name: string): string =>
     'It is not decoration — I chose it before anything else, so treat it as the subject and read this',
     'directory looking for what it refers to.',
     '',
-    'I have not said more than that on purpose. I would rather answer your questions than write a',
-    'specification up front, so orient yourself first and then ask me one.',
+    'Read the **Commanders** skill before you reply. It is how this works, and it is short.',
+    '',
+    'Then reply with TWO SENTENCES AND ONE QUESTION. Not a summary of what you found — the single fact',
+    'that makes the question worth asking, said the way you would say it out loud. No headings, no bullet',
+    'points, no file paths, no commit hashes, no tag names. Do not begin with "Oriented" and do not tell',
+    'me you verified anything: I asked you to look, so saying you looked is not news. Everything else you',
+    'learned stays in your history until I ask for it.',
+    '',
+    'Take as long as you like reading first. The constraint is on what you say, not on what you do.',
   ].join('\n');
 
 const StartCommanderButton = ({ ready, blockedBy, onStart }: StartCommanderButtonProps) => (