---
name: preserve-before-the-release-call-not-during
description: A broadcast "holds released" has no ordering — anything that must happen first cannot be a sentence inside it. Preservation is its own step, owned and confirmed, BEFORE the release call.
metadata:
  type: feedback
---

**Mine, 2026-08-29, CONDUIT/v0.65.0 close.** I had held three pools and two worktrees across a
four-head arc, and I had named ONE of them — kitsubito `rca-236`, carrying an uncommitted 5-file
RCA instrument — as "the cheapest thing on this arc to still have". Then I broadcast
*"POOLS RELEASED — reap party is ON"* to three agents at once, in the SAME message that explained
why that tree was worth keeping.

That is incoherent: I identified an artifact as valuable and issued a starting gun to everyone able
to destroy it, with preservation as an unowned step racing the release.

**It survived by about a minute, and only because the lane owner preserved on his own initiative
before touching anything.** His diffs landed; his attempt to also copy the five files VERBATIM found
the tree already deleted by another agent acting on the same broadcast. Had he reaped first and
preserved second — the obvious order for someone told the holds are lifted — an 830-line test
instrument would be gone, and the teardown would have read as clean and well-numbered.

**Why:** a broadcast has no ordering. Every recipient starts simultaneously and the fastest actor
wins. So a precondition expressed as a clause inside the release message is not a precondition at
all; it is a hope with good grammar.

**How to apply:** when a hold exists to protect an artifact, make preservation its own step with a
NAMED OWNER, completed and CONFIRMED (path + hash) before the release call is sent. Release as a
SECOND message, gated on that confirmation. Also record the restore COST honestly — the preserved
patch here does NOT apply straight at head (the test file moved; src applies under `--3way`), and a
preserved artifact everyone assumes is restorable is worse than one whose limits are written down.

Related: [[v0650-arc-in-flight]] · [[dont-take-a-diagnosis-as-measured]]