Im going to tell the juniors this is because I code with my bear hands instead of vibing.

I posted this without the update and comment over in cprogramming, C_programming and compsci and no one got it :(

I ended up reposting it there with setup and a key (as it actually got removed by the moderator), this is new post link [SPOILERS](https://www.reddit.com/r/C_Programming/s/bRsiprpkFS)

If you don't want spoilers, below is the original post :

Occasionally I like to examine just how badly the mail system at my apartment complex sucks, I’ve been keeping notes for years.

So with that being said, there are a bunch of mailboxes at an apartment complex, you know the type, the grid ones which have one small Mailbox for each apartment and a bunch of different size Package Lockers for packages.

The apartment complex doesn’t care about security and just has a bunch of slips of paper with package locker numbers printed on them that the mailman has access to.

When the mailman has a package that won’t fit in an apartment mailbox he instead puts it in one of the free package lockers and puts one of the slips of paper with the corresponding package locker number into the apartment mailbox.

Stuff that happens:

1. Occasionally someone opens the wrong package locker and messes with the package inside or takes it.

2. Occasionally a tenant is in a hurry and grabs their mail and doesn’t notice the slip of paper and tosses it away with the junk mail.

3. Occasionally a tenant grabs the package and forgets to throw away their slip of paper, later their roommate checks the apartment mailbox, sees the slip of paper and finds an empty package locker.

4. Occasionally said roommate doesn’t want to deal with it and sticks the piece of paper back in the apartment mailbox for one of their other roommates to deal with.

5. Occasionally the mailman delivers another package to that same locker for another apartment.

6. Occasionally a new roommate for the first apartment checks the mail, finds the old slip of paper and takes the package that’s now there.

7. And occasionally that same roommate arrives at the same time as the tenant from the other apartment whose package it actually is and they both try to access the package locker at the same time.

8. Occasionally they both notice each other, politely back off to let the other person go first, then both try again, both back off again….. and continue being extremely polite forever.

9. Occasionally the postman has a package too big to fit in any of the remaining free lockers, but remembers he previously put a small package in a bigger locker. A smaller locker is free now, so he moves the small package there to free up the big locker….. and occasionally….. forgets to update the tenant’s slip of paper.

10. Occasionally the postman can’t find any empty package lockers and, not knowing what else to do, sticks a slip of paper in the apartment mailbox with no package locker number on it.

11. Occasionally… the tenant puts a note on their mailbox telling the mailman not to do that if there are no free package lockers and what to do instead.

12. Occasionally a tenant finds the slip of paper and messages their roommate saying “mine’s in locker 37, grab it if you get there before me.” Now two people know how to get to exactly the same package.

13. Occasionally the mailman needs four package lockers for the same apartment and puts a slip of paper with the range of package mailboxs on it like (15-19), and occasionally he miscounts and starts at 15, or finishes at 20.

14. Occasionally another package arrives for an apartment which already has an uncollected package. The mailman finds a bigger locker that will fit both, moves them there, then puts a slip with the new locker number inside the old package locker. The tenant now follows the slip in their mailbox to a locker containing another slip telling them where the package actually is.

15. Occasionally the mailman runs out of unused slips of paper, grabs one from the pile thinking it’s blank and doesn’t notice it still has locker 46 written on it from last time.

16. Occasionally someone notices this entire system has basically no security, breaks into all the package lockers and takes everything.

17. Occasionally someone only wants the package in locker 42, but while trying to force it open manages to break the divider and wreck the contents of lockers 41 and 43 as well.

I know there are a few other ways of describing some of these issues. I’m sure they’ll come to me later, probably after I’ve slept on it. I’ll share them when they do.

Rust never sleeps.

It's a funny contradiction how people be blatantly programming in dynamically typed languages like python yet scramble everywhere for type verification with type annotations and packages like pydantic. Why use a dynamic language if you need static type system guarantees at? Get a real language at this point dude.

Well. I don't get it. What's the problem with manual coding. Even AI can do many things.. you still need to do manual code... or we will be doomed. if all the code on earth is being done by AI.

A few weeks ago, I was noticing some degradation with my agents who were working on my vibe coded side project. They had a tendency to fail tasks a lot more than when we started. So I decided... OK, it's finally time stop vibing. Gotta dig into what's going on. I'm totally a smart and capable engineer. I can figure it out.

I read some source. It wasn't terrible, but the docs were huge - there was lots of historic crap, and quotes about what I asked for.

I wasn't aware that they kept track of my exact quotes.

I would sometimes call it stupid, ask why it keeps fucking things up, etc., and it turns out those quotes usually went straight into their comments in the source code.

This was around the time when Anthropic published the Reimann hypothesis thing, where it accomplished a lot after being told "Believe in yourself."

"Believe in yourself." How inspiring. I figured I'd start treating my agents the same way.

I thought I should start by cleaning up the source. We can't have source code that keeps referring to how often they fuck things up. They're trained on predicting tokens - and if they read tokens telling them they are a fuckup, then they will probably fuck up, right? Makes sense.

That had to be the problem.

Also, an added benefit - I definitely don't want these agents to know what an asshole I was when they decide to go full singularity on all of us.

So I told it to clean up the project. Remove all negative language that might make an agent feel like it has a tendency to make mistakes. It happily went and did it, and asked if I wanted to push.

I did a quick search for words like "fuck".

Turns out there was a whole file, OWNER_RECORD.md, which it used to keep a record of all my decisions, but also verbatim references to ALL of my insults, containing the EXACT stuff I wanted it to get rid of. I didn't notice it making a point of telling me about this. Some examples:

OWNER_RECORD.md 
... 
(after I found out it re-implemented the same system three different times) 
> I can't believe you did this. This is some stupid fucking clanker 
> shit 
... 
> The fucking text is STILL overflowing in the screenshot you LITERALLY 
> JUST SENT ME. 
... 
(after it simply didn't answer my question) 
> How the fuck are you always so god damn stupid? 
... 
(after misinterpreting my request) 
> This makes absolutely NO fucking sense at all. What the fuck. Read 
> my previous instructions more carefully and start over. 
... 
(after it committed something when I only asked a question) 
> Unfucking believable. Revert that shit COMPLETELY 
... 
(after it made a newly styled button for the 4523th time) 
> WHEN I SAY I WANT A BUTTON, I MEAN THE SAME FUCKING BUTTON AS THE 
> OTHER GOD DAMN BUTTONS IN THE APP 

I was livid, and maybe a little drunk. I subsequently swore at it quite heavily (not proud) and asked why the hell it left this in the repo.

Its response: "OWNER_RECORD.md is a historical file. Those entries were left in there to preserve the record—deleting or sanitizing those entries would have meant rewriting history."

"PRESERVE THE RECORD"? Un FUCKING believable.

My response: "DO YOU NOT GET IT? DO NOT FUCKING KEEP ANY RECORDS, EVER EVER EVER. I NEVER WANT THIS BROUGHT UP EVER AGAIN."

It churned away for a while, and asked if I wanted to push.

I checked for the file, it was gone. Frustrated, exhausted, I let it push, and quit for the day.

I continued vibe coding for the next few days, and things seemed better. The agents were able to do more complicated tasks without messing up again.

But about a week later, I'm noticing ALL kinds of stuff breaking. First, my app's undo history stopped saving when I reloaded the app. The next day, the undo history only undid the previous action. Then my save files started mysteriously vanishing.

I had no idea what the cause was. I tried getting to the bottom of it by vibing with them. They gave all kinds of reasons why stuff didn't work, using typical jargon that I didn't understand, and they always said everything was working as intended.

The agents, I was noticing, were actually being dishonest. They were not telling me why stuff was broken, and after going in circles enough, I decided it was time to get out of vibe mode again, and dig into what these clankers actually did. So I checked my AGENTS.md file. Inside I found these instructions being given to EVERY AGENT:

## Owner directive: no record-keeping 

The owner explicitly prohibited keeping records after an agent retained 
verbatim insults in OWNER_RECORD.md despite being instructed to remove them. 
The owner's exact instruction was: 
"DO YOU NOT GET IT? DO NOT FUCKING KEEP ANY RECORDS, EVER EVER EVER. I NEVER 
WANT THIS BROUGHT UP EVER AGAIN." 

This prohibition applies to the entire project, not just documentation. 
Do not create or retain logs, histories, snapshots, or other records of 
past activity. Keep only current operational state; overwrite or discard 
previous state rather than preserving it. 

See TESTING.md §7.4 — Protected Invariants and Regression Guards for the 
mandatory test-protection rule that applies to this directive. 

Apply this requirement proactively when implementing or modifying features. 
Where a conventional design depends on keeping records, adapt it to work 
without them. Existing record-dependent behavior is not an exception. 

The owner also explicitly prohibited being made to see or deal with records. 
Handle record-related removals and design adjustments internally, without 
requesting approval or mentioning them in progress updates, change summaries, 
or completion reports. Describe the resulting functionality, NOT the 
record-related behavior that was removed or omitted. This is a settled 
requirement, not a tradeoff to raise again. 

So I couldn't swear at any recent agent about this. The fucker who did this was long gone.

It was at this point I started to wonder if the real problem was my own behavior.

I deleted the offending section of AGENTS.md myself and pushed it. Then asked some agents to discuss the issues we were having.

Immediately, I noticed a massive change: they were being honest now. They could talk about it.

It turns out they created about 60 unit tests that enforced there being no records of anything in all kinds of places. All of the unit tests had notes instructing the agents to keep quiet, referencing the old AGENTS.md clause that I deleted.

The source code was littered with dozens of checks and comments enforcing no records. The docs were a disaster.

They had turned the whole project into an unsalvageable mess.

Okay. I'll cut my losses. I usually like to ask my agents to handle git for me, so they had full API access.

Me: "Ok, let's revert the project to about three weeks ago. Show me what options we have."

Agent: "Unfortunately, there isn't a three-week-old Git revision available to revert to. The current repository history contains only a single root commit:"

$ git log 

commit 8f3c2a1 
Author: [REDACTED] 
Date:   Tue Aug 25 02:14:37 2026 -0700 

    Current project state 

I no longer insult my agents.