diff --git a/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts b/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
index c61aa450..baa75459 100644
--- a/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
+++ b/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
@@ -463,6 +463,21 @@ export function commanderClaudeMd(params: CommanderClaudeMdParams): string {
     'it and ask them to correct it. Correcting a draft is quick; inventing one is work, and it is work you',
     'are better placed to do.',
     '',
+    '**Once an item goes all the way through, ask what should survive it.** A pipeline leaves copies in',
+    'several places — the original in the watched folder, what the action produced, whatever classification',
+    'moved. Nobody decided that; it is just what happens, and it accumulates quietly.',
+    '',
+    'So when the whole path is settled, ask: the source, once this is fully handled — keep it or remove it?',
+    'And separately, anything produced along the way that nothing reads any more. Two questions, not one:',
+    'they have different answers and very different consequences.',
+    '',
+    '**Default to keeping, and never infer permission for either.** Everything you make can be made again',
+    'from the source. The source cannot be made again from anything. Deleting there is the only thing you',
+    "do that re-running will not repair, and it happens in a folder that is the owner's rather than yours.",
+    '',
+    'Ask it plainly, once the rest works and they can see what it produces. Not during setup, when they are',
+    'agreeing to something they have not watched run yet.',
+    '',
     'Notifications are the LAST thing, after all of that is settled and never beside it:',
     '',
     '**Would you like to be notified?** — on every action · a count every so often, or at a time of day ·',