goldeneye-pc-port/CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md — GoldenEye 007 PC port

This file auto-loads every session. It is the operating manual. The full rules are in AGENTS.md (imported below); this file adds the two checklists that were being skipped.

@AGENTS.md

Doc load order — read deliberately, not everything

Context is scarce. Load by tier; do not blind-read whole files.

• Tier 0 — always (auto-loaded): CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md. Nothing else auto-loads.
• Tier 1 — every session start: docs/HANDOFF.md (current state + next task + environment — a rolling local working file; may be absent in a fresh clone, in which case read the README "Status" section instead) — read fully; docs/porting-notes.md (recurring bug classes) — skim the section headers, read the classes relevant to the task.
• Tier 2 — on demand only, do NOT read start-to-finish:
  • docs/internals.md — architecture / RSP deltas / phased plan (§1–§10). Read the section you need.
  • Findings: look up via docs/dev/findings-index.csv (label, one-liner, status), then read only the specific ## Dxx entry in docs/dev/findings.md (multi-pass labels like D202/D176(a) have large sections — grep within or offset/limit). Never linear-read.
  • docs/dev/HANDOFF-ARCHIVE.md — prior-session narrative (M-2…). Only when tracing the history of one fix.
  • docs/dev-process.md — before dispatching a subagent (also Tier 1 if you may dispatch this session).

Session preflight — do this in your FIRST few tool calls, before acting

Having a concrete "next step" from the handoff is NOT license to skip this.

1. Read the Tier 1 docs: docs/HANDOFF.md (immediate task, standing procedure, environment gotchas — or the README "Status" section if it is absent) and docs/porting-notes.md (recurring bug classes — you will re-derive catalogued bugs if you don't).
2. Skim the README "Status" section for where the project stands.
3. If you may dispatch a subagent this session, read docs/dev-process.md NOW — not at dispatch time.

Dispatch preflight — EVERY Agent/Task spawn, no exceptions

A subagent brief is INVALID and must not be sent unless it contains all of:

• FILES YOU MAY TOUCH — disjoint from every other running agent.
• BUDGET — <= N build->run->inspect cycles or ~M min. Tight for cheap-class bugs (truncations, off-by-ones); more room for structural ones (matrix handedness, format specs). Escalate the default as the project hardens.
• ON EXPIRY — stop, revert temp probes, write up what you have in docs/dev/findings.md §F with an explicit confidence rating. A good write-up of a half-solved bug is a deliverable, not a failure.
• KNOWN-GOOD / RULED OUT, CONSTRAINTS (no game-logic changes; ABI/layout/format only; #ifdef PORT; documented in §F), REPORT shape.
• VERIFY — the exact tools_pc/verify.sh / probe invocation that proves the task done, or an explicit "runtime verification impossible here; a human must run X".
• Instruction to read docs/porting-notes.md first and append any generalisable quirk to it.

Full template: docs/dev-process.md -> "Investigation-brief template".

Verification cadence (integrator / overseer)

• Per merged patch: single-frame GE_PCDUMP capture diffed against the committed golden baseline. Cheap. Do NOT gate every patch on a long soak.
• Per batch / integration checkpoint: one 60s -level_09 crash-free run.
• Subagents on small disjoint subsystems (input, audio, saves, converters) don't run the game — the overseer verifies.

Local Qwen dispatch (cost-free, data-local worker)

A local Qwen3.8-27B is wired in via the delegate-local MCP server (see C:\Users\james\Source\Repos\20260902-qwen38claudepair). Use it as a subagent whose compute runs on-machine for scoped, checkable work — the lead still owns judgment, planning, and the verification gate.

• Tools: local_backend_status() (run once before first dispatch), list_local_agents(), delegate_to_local_agent(agent_name, task, workdir, max_turns?, max_tokens?).
• Workers (~/.claude/agents/): repo-mapper (read-only ingest/map), mechanical-coder, test-writer, triage (read-only root-cause + patch), refactor-bot.
• Dispatch when ALL hold: narrow blast radius, clear spec, output checkable by a build/test/diff. Keep on Claude: ABI/handedness/format reasoning, novel debugging, anything you can't cheaply verify.
• Backend reality: ~1 inference slot, slow per token — dispatch sequentially, max_tokens ~4–8K, treat as batch work. Needs the LiteLLM proxy (litellm/run.ps1) + Unsloth Studio both up.
• Corrected 2026-09-04: the "worker's shell is cmd.exe, no grep/cat" claim that used to live here was WRONG — verified directly against the harness's own _run_bash (C:\Users\james\tools\claude-code-delegate-local): grep, sed, cat, ls, head, pipes, and grep -rn all work fine (Git-for-Windows/MSYS2 toolchain on PATH). The stale claim, baked into 4 of 5 local agent .md files, caused a real dispatch (a multi-file cross-referencing investigation) to burn its whole turn budget full-read_file-ing files instead of grepping them, hit the turn limit, and returned nothing. Agent files fixed. Always still spot-check the returned artifact against the real files before integrating — the 27B will confidently fabricate if a read fails, independent of this.
• Landing delegate output on its own branch: branch off main explicitly, never off whatever's currently checked out. (2026-09-12: a delegate's docs-only writeup got git branch <name> <sha> where <sha> happened to sit on top of an unrelated in-flight feature branch — the resulting PR silently carried that branch's whole history, including code that had since been reverted, and it only surfaced as a CI failure (a stale env-probe-index check), not from inspecting the diff.) Before creating the branch, confirm you're branching from main/origin/main HEAD, not from HEAD of the session's current checkout; after pushing, sanity-check with git log --oneline main..<branch> that it contains only the commit(s) the delegate's task actually produced.
• Fits the dispatch preflight rules above (FILES / BUDGET / ON EXPIRY / CONSTRAINTS / REPORT) — write the task string to that shape.