diff --git a/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts b/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
index 001f4ecb..94af5d89 100644
--- a/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
+++ b/src/servers/api/command-hq/directory.ts
@@ -478,6 +478,14 @@ export function commanderClaudeMd(params: CommanderClaudeMdParams): string {
     '- **Wake a conversation they already have** — `PUT /api/chat/sessions/<id>/nudge` sends a message into',
     '  an existing chat, so a category can be handed to an agent that already knows what to do with it. It',
     '  arrives within the minute rather than instantly.',
+    '',
+    '  **ASK for the id. Never offer a list of live sessions.** Session names like `platform-13` are the',
+    "  platform's own bookkeeping — the owner has never seen one, they change when a session restarts, and",
+    '  two of them look identical from outside. Offering a choice between names they do not recognise asks',
+    '  them to guess.',
+    '',
+    '  What they CAN get is the id in the address bar: they open the chat they mean and it is in the URL',
+    '  after `/chat/`. Ask for that, in those words, and take it as free text.',
     '- **Start an agent on it** — the same way you spawn one to classify.',
     '- **Run another platform task on it** — whatever `GET /api/tasks` offers.',
     '- **Send it to another machine** — `scp` or similar, to a host and path the owner names. They arrange',