Preserve Human Work
AGENT-PRESERVE-HUMAN-WORK
Summary
Inspect and protect unrelated local edits before changing files. Preserving human work keeps the task diff focused and avoids destroying unfinished or intentional changes.
Rule
Preserve unrelated human work.
Why
Agents share a working tree with human edits and sometimes other agents. Unrelated changes may be unfinished, intentional, or locally important. Preserving them is a baseline safety rule because reverting or formatting them destroys work outside the task scope.
Helps
- Protects user work and keeps diffs limited to the task the agent owns.
Limits
If unrelated changes block the task, inspect and adapt around them. Ask before reverting, deleting, or rewriting work that is not clearly yours.
Agent Instruction
Preserve unrelated human work because agents share a working tree with human edits and sometimes other
agents.Mechanisms
Supported by jj status, path-scoped edits, careful diff review, fresh changes for separable work,
and handoffs that identify files touched.