claude/.claude/memory/learnings.md

---

type: learnings_registry entry_prefix: LRN schema: id: LRN-XXX date: YYYY-MM-DD pattern: string (what was observed, abstracted) context: string (where/when it happened - concrete) future_application: string (when to recall this) rules:

• Capture learnings that apply beyond the current task.
• Abstract from the incident - the pattern is what is reusable, not the one-shot fact.
• Link to source (commit, file, PR) when possible.
• Replaces the previous LESSONS.md format. Old file was empty - no content to migrate. ---

Learnings registry (LRN)

Index

ID	Date	Pattern	Applies to
LRN-001	2026-04-22	rtk shape-compression breaks pipes	any pipeline chaining rtk curl/cat/read into jq, python -c, awk
LRN-002	2026-04-23	Moving report-file paths requires grepping bash READS, not just WRITES	any refactor that moves a generated file used by a dispatcher
LRN-003	2026-04-27	Claude Code disable* settings use sentinel string "disable", not boolean	any change to permissions.defaultMode or related blocker keys
LRN-004	2026-04-27	framer-motion was rebranded motion in Nov 2024 — different packages per framework	any new project recommending an animation lib; auditing legacy imports
LRN-005	2026-05-03	claude plugin install does NOT enable — separate claude plugin enable required	every plugin installer that targets ALWAYS-ON status
LRN-006	2026-05-03	caveman-shrink (and any MCP middleware proxy) is non-functional without an upstream wrapper	any MCP middleware/proxy package — never claude mcp add it bare

---

LRN-001 — rtk shape-compression silently breaks downstream parsers

• Date: 2026-04-22
• Pattern: when a tracking tool (rtk) intercepts stdout and returns a schematized/compressed representation instead of the raw payload, every downstream parser breaks silently — because the user (or the LLM) never sees rtk's output, only the parser error.
• Context: rtk curl replaces raw JSON output with a tokenized version, regardless of TTY vs pipe. Claude Code hooks auto-rewrite curl → rtk curl, so the behavior is impossible to anticipate without knowing the hook.
• Future application: for any tool that auto-rewrites standard commands, explicitly verify pipe behavior. Documented workaround: exclude_commands=["curl"] in ~/.config/rtk/config.toml, or rtk proxy. See BLK-001.

LRN-002 — Moving report-file paths requires grepping bash READS, not just WRITES

• Date: 2026-04-23
• Pattern: when moving the write path of a generated file (report, artifact, cache), you must also grep the places that READ that file — not only those that write it. Dispatchers (orchestrator skills that dispatch to an agent and then parse the result) typically contain bash commands like test -s X.md, grep ... X.md, wc -l X.md — these refs are invisible if you only grep for "write" or "output path".
• Context: .claude/audits/ refactor (commit 5c5e82c). First pass: I updated write paths across 5 skills (seo/geo/harden/validate/code-clean) and 3 agents. The user asked for a verify-gate. They re-grepped and found 10+ bare bash refs (e.g. test -s HARDEN.md, grep -oE ... VALIDATE.md) I had missed — the dispatchers were broken (looking at project root while the agent was writing to .claude/audits/). Fixed in commit 5c5e82c (bundled with the same commit).
• Future application:
  • Before declaring a file-path migration "complete", grep the basename (grep -rn "HARDEN\.md") in addition to the full path — to catch bare bash usages.
  • If the file is used in pipelines (test, grep, wc, cat, head), search for those verbs explicitly.
  • Verify-gates save work: one extra round asked by the user forced exhaustive re-grepping. Without it, two dispatchers would have shipped broken.

LRN-003 — Claude Code disable* settings use the sentinel string "disable", not a boolean

• Date: 2026-04-27
• Pattern: Claude Code blocker-style settings (disableAutoMode, disableBypassPermissionsMode) use the literal string "disable" as a sentinel. The key being absent means the feature is available; the value "disable" is what turns the blocker on. Any other value (including false, true, null) has no effect — the doc explicitly states this.
• Context: switching permissions.defaultMode to "auto" while disableAutoMode: "disable" was still present would have failed at startup ("auto mode unavailable"). The naming disable<Foo>: "disable" reads ambiguously — easy to assume it's a boolean toggle and leave the key in place.
• Future application:
  • Before changing defaultMode, audit the matching disable* key in the same permissions block. If present with value "disable", remove it.
  • Same logic for bypassPermissions mode and disableBypassPermissionsMode.
  • Don't trust the doc's naming — read the value semantics. Sentinel strings beat booleans here because the harness can distinguish "unset" from "explicitly off" (admin policy).
• Reference: commit 1421578, doc https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings.

LRN-004 — framer-motion rebranded motion (Nov 2024) — different packages per framework

• Date: 2026-04-27
• Pattern: framer-motion was renamed motion in November 2024. The rename is not just cosmetic: it bundles React (motion/react), Svelte, and vanilla-JS support under a single npm package, while Vue gets its own parallel package motion-v. The legacy package framer-motion still installs and works but is in maintenance mode — recommending it in a new framework default would lock projects into legacy import paths from day one. Detection of "is animation already covered" must therefore include both names plus the broader anim ecosystem (gsap, lottie-react, react-spring, popmotion, @formkit/auto-animate) to avoid double-installs.
• Context: building animation-lib auto-install in /init-project and /onboard. Initial user phrasing was "framer-motion" (the old name they remembered). Picking the package name without verifying the rename would have shipped legacy imports in every new scaffold.
• Future application:
  • For React / Next.js / Remix / Astro+React / Svelte: motion (import { motion } from 'motion/react').
  • For Vue 3 / Nuxt: motion-v (separate package, separate API).
  • For React Native: do NOT recommend motion — use react-native-reanimated (motion targets the DOM).
  • When auditing existing projects, check both framer-motion and motion keys in package.json deps; treat either as "animation already covered".
  • Before adopting any "industry default" lib in a framework, verify the canonical package name is current — naming churn (rebrand, scope change @org/lib, fork) is common in JS land.
• Reference: helper lib/animation-lib-check.sh, BDR-005.

LRN-005 — claude plugin install does NOT enable — claude plugin enable is a separate step

• Date: 2026-05-03
• Pattern: the Claude Code CLI splits "available" from "active" for marketplace plugins. claude plugin install --scope user name@source only copies the plugin into ~/.claude/plugins/cache/<marketplace>/<plugin>/<version>/. It does NOT write name@source: true into the user's settings.json:enabledPlugins map. Without an explicit claude plugin enable name@source, the plugin sits dormant — installed but unloaded. This is symmetric with claude plugin disable, which keeps the cache and only removes the enabledPlugins entry.
• Context: discovered while auditing why security-guidance and superpowers were ✘ disabled in claude plugin list despite the project's install-plugins.sh summary banner declaring them "ALWAYS ON". Root cause: install_plugin() only ran claude plugin install, never enable. The bug had stayed invisible because a hardcoded printf "│ ✅ ON : security-guidance rtk superpowers │" in session-start.sh printed the same names regardless of actual state — the lying banner agreed with the lying install.
• Future application:
  • For any plugin meant to be ALWAYS ON, follow claude plugin install with claude plugin enable name@source (idempotent — no-op if already enabled).
  • Detect "actually enabled" via enabledPlugins[name@source] === true in settings.json, NOT by the presence of the cache dir. The pattern is implemented in lib/detect-plugins.sh:plugin_enabled() (filesystem grep, no subprocess).
  • Any banner / status display that claims a plugin is on must read state, never hardcode names. Hardcoded labels turn a single bug into two co-conspiring bugs that mask each other.
• Reference: commit 2ec7935, lib/detect-plugins.sh:plugin_enabled, install-plugins.sh:enable_plugin().

LRN-006 — caveman-shrink (and any MCP middleware proxy) needs an upstream wrapper to function

• Date: 2026-05-03
• Pattern: some MCP packages are middleware proxies, not standalone servers. They wrap an upstream MCP server and transform its responses (e.g. caveman-shrink compresses prose fields). Running them bare via claude mcp add proxy-name -- npx -y proxy-pkg registers a server that errors immediately with "missing upstream command" — every health check fails, and Claude Code reports the MCP as broken until a human intervenes. The CLI claude mcp add doesn't validate that the configured command launches a working stdio MCP, so the bad registration silently lands.
• Context: when adding caveman, the upstream installer auto-registers claude mcp add caveman-shrink -- npx -y caveman-shrink and prints "registered. wrap an upstream by editing the mcpServers entry". Following that flow leaves the user with a permanently failing MCP entry until they realize they have to edit ~/.claude.json manually.

• Future application:

  • For any MCP that is a proxy/middleware (read package docs for "upstream", "wraps", "proxy"), register it under a DERIVED name <proxy>-<upstream> with the upstream baked into the args. Example for caveman-shrink wrapping the filesystem server:

    claude mcp add caveman-shrink-fs --scope user -- \
    npx -y caveman-shrink npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /path
    

  • Detection of "is this MCP correctly set up?" must look for the derived name (caveman-shrink-*), not the bare proxy name. Bare-name registration is treated as broken.

  • Default install scripts should NOT auto-register middleware MCPs — print the snippet for the user to choose an upstream. See install-plugins.sh STEP 5.5.

• Reference: commit 9b20b84, lib/detect-plugins.sh:detect_caveman_shrink, install-plugins.sh STEP 5.5 MCP block.