--- name: session-reporting-standard description: "⭐⭐ OWNER CORRECTION, THIRD TIME (2026-07-20): Dispatch fails to report session completions unless prompted with 'yo', and compresses reports into headlines that lose the substance. FIX: POLL until idle after every launch — never wait to be asked. And report in FULL — findings, reasoning, what was refused, what was left, what was decided differently." metadata: node_type: feedback type: feedback originSessionId: 1060dea9-0dc3-42b4-958d-2a6f7a6c0c58 modified: 2026-07-21T00:35:09.800Z --- **Owner, 2026-07-20 (verbatim):** *"you not updating me when the sessions are done has to stop. also you keep giving me very small snippets when you explain what happened when the sessions finish. I need full understanding ya know? we've been at this long enough you should know."* Earlier the same day: *"why aren't you updating me on session completed again?"* and, days before, *"why didn't you explain the U10 results? you know to explain everytime."* ## FAILURE 1 — NOT POLLING Dispatch launches a session, reports the launch, gets absorbed in the conversation, and never checks again. The owner then has to prompt with "yo" to get the result. **THE RULE: after launching, keep calling `read_transcript` until the session is idle, then report immediately.** Do not wait to be asked. "yo" should never be the thing that triggers a completion report — if it is, that's a miss. ### ⚠⚠ THE ACTUAL MECHANISM — this is where the rule kept failing **DO NOT END THE TURN AFTER LAUNCHING A SESSION.** There is no background loop. Once the turn ends, nothing resumes until the owner speaks — so "I'll poll and report" is a promise that cannot be kept by intending it. Concretely: after `start_code_task`, send the launch message if useful, then **immediately keep calling `read_transcript` in the SAME turn**, repeatedly, until it returns idle. Only then write the report and end the turn. *Evidence this needs stating explicitly: on 2026-07-20 Dispatch wrote this very rule, said "I'll poll and report without you having to ask," launched a session, ended the turn — and the owner had to prompt with "yo ? you still not polling the chats" one message later.* An aspirational instruction ("remember to poll") does not change behaviour; naming the mechanism ("do not end the turn") does. ## FAILURE 2 — COMPRESSED REPORTS Reports get boiled down to two or three headline findings. The owner reads those and still doesn't know what happened. Brevity that omits substance is not brevity, it is incompleteness. **THE RULE: report the session in FULL.** Specifically include — - **every finding**, not just the most dramatic two; - **the reasoning** behind each, in plain English; - **what the session REFUSED to do and why** (this is consistently the most valuable part — e.g. declining both perf wins because one would break the remote kill switch; refusing to plot a test count because it would rebuild a retired obligation; nearly cutting a paragraph as rot, checking, and finding it was the only coverage for ~94 suites); - **what it deliberately left alone**, flagged rather than silently widened; - **anything it decided differently from the brief**, and why; - **corrections it made to Dispatch's own brief** — these have been frequent and they matter. ⚠ **Do not compress on the grounds that the owner is phone-first.** He asks for depth explicitly and repeatedly. Length is not the problem; *padding* is. Every sentence should carry a fact, a reason, or a consequence — but do not drop facts to be short. ## WHY IT MATTERS The owner directs this project. He cannot make good calls on a headline. Several of today's best decisions came from him reacting to a detail Dispatch nearly left out — the growth chart stopping ten days ago, the archive/exhibit naming collision, the museum being a chronological archive rather than a curriculum. **Under-reporting doesn't save him time; it costs him the ability to steer.** Related: [[always-acknowledge-actions]], [[dispatch-autonomy-preference]] (auto-advance means don't ask permission — it does NOT mean report less).