diff --git a/docs/command-hq.md b/docs/command-hq.md
index 99ac2f37..5a482d22 100644
--- a/docs/command-hq.md
+++ b/docs/command-hq.md
@@ -494,6 +494,19 @@ so a commander open in the panel at the moment this fires keeps showing the old
 navigation or reload. The grid's cards do not have this problem — `GET /commanders` is already polled every
 15s. Flagged rather than fixed; worth a `refetch()` hook if it turns out to matter in practice.
 
+**"(no output yet)" on that same google.com watcher, traced to the actual running process on this
+machine rather than guessed at.** The tray's live-log-tail (`BackgroundTaskTray` → `useTaskDetail` →
+`GET /chat/tasks/:id` → `loadBackgroundTask`/`tailFile`) is a general `/chat` feature Command HQ gets for
+free — nothing to build there, and it was already working correctly. The task's `.output` file was
+genuinely empty: the agent had written `timeout 8 ping -c 1 -W 5 google.com >/dev/null 2>&1`, silencing
+`ping`'s own output entirely and only ever `echo`ing on a FAILED ping — correct per "let me know if it goes
+down," but it means a healthy watcher shows nothing at all, indistinguishable at a glance from a stuck one.
+Fixed at the source rather than in the tray: `background-job-prompt.ts` gained an unconditional rule (every
+job, not only watchers — number 4, 5 or 8 depending on which rules already preceded it in that particular
+prompt) telling the agent not to discard a command's own output. The tray already shows whatever reaches
+the log file live; the gap was that jobs were routinely told, by habit rather than by this prompt, to send
+that output to `/dev/null`.
+
 **A real bug, caught by tracing rather than by the compiler, worth stating plainly.** When the cost-tracking
 schema changed `recordCommandHqWatcherFired`'s signature from `(userId, sessionId)` to `(sessionRowId,
 taskId)`, the ONE existing call site was not updated in the same pass — and `bunx tsgo` stayed clean, because
diff --git a/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/Chat/background-job-prompt.ts b/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/Chat/background-job-prompt.ts
index 19072d9e..681d3b0c 100644
--- a/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/Chat/background-job-prompt.ts
+++ b/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/Chat/background-job-prompt.ts
@@ -83,8 +83,10 @@ function fireRule(onFire: FireBehavior): string {
 
   const exitLines = [
     `7. EXIT when it fires — the exit IS the notification. A loop that prints and continues has`,
-    `   told no one. Stay silent until then: everything printed lands in context at once on exit.`,
-    `   Report what fired.`,
+    `   told no one. Add no narration of your own until then — no "still checking", no progress`,
+    `   commentary: everything YOU print lands in my context at once on exit, so keep that part`,
+    `   quiet. That is not the same as the command's own output, which stays visible the whole`,
+    `   time regardless — see the output rule below. Report what fired.`,
   ];
 
   return onFire === 'handoff'
@@ -139,6 +141,21 @@ export function buildBackgroundJobPrompt(spec: BackgroundJobSpec): string {
     );
   }
 
+  // Unconditional — every shape of job gets this, not only watchers. `watching`/`spec.mode` only decide
+  // which number it lands on, matching whichever rules already came before it in this particular prompt.
+  const outputRuleNumber = watching ? 8 : spec.mode === 'command' ? 5 : 4;
+  rules.push(
+    ``,
+    `${outputRuleNumber}. Do not throw away the command's own output — no \`>/dev/null\`, no \`2>&1\` into a`,
+    `   sink, no piping into something that swallows it, even for a check you only care about the`,
+    `   exit code of. Whatever it would print in a terminal is what I want to see, live, in this`,
+    `   job's log: a ping's own reply lines, a build's own progress, whatever the command already`,
+    `   says on its way. I can watch that file the same way I could watch a terminal — redirect`,
+    `   only what is genuinely noise (a spinner repainting one line), never the signal. This is`,
+    `   separate from anything you narrate yourself about the job's status: that is your voice;`,
+    `   this is the command's, and I want to hear both.`,
+  );
+
   return [
     `Start a background job. The mechanics below are load-bearing; follow them exactly.`,
     ``,