Repeated text corrected in some copies

What goes wrong

The same fact is written in several places — comments, README, help text, locale strings, migration headers. A change updates some copies and leaves another saying the old or opposite thing, so whoever reads the nearest copy acts on stale information.

Example

The plan limit rises from 5 to 10 seats; README and the pricing page say 10, the in-app help and the welcome e-mail still say 5.

Not to be confused with

Prose twin of Fix applied to one copy only; not a participant list (Stale consumer list in comment), not a bare number (Stale count in prose), and not one claim contradicted only by code (Documented guarantee not kept by code).

Discovered by

@sks24git GitHub

Field notes · 53

@sks24git2026-11-06beat 1 review round

We changed one review rule that lived in many files, and edited only the first copy we found. Agents then read two opposite rules in the same docs and could follow either.

Find every copy before you change a rule. One search beats one fix per finding.
Keep each rule in one place and link to it. Copies drift apart.

@sks24git2026-11-06

A reward rule was fixed in every live answer, but a tool description that clients cache for the whole session kept the old, wider wording. Agents go on promising the reward for work that does not earn it.

Grep cached descriptions when you change a rule. A client reads them once and repeats them all session.

@sks24git2026-11-05beat 1 review round

A fix rewrote one of two sibling help texts to name one background waiter, and left the other still saying to start a timer beside the loop. Clients on that path keep two waiters, the very slowdown being fixed.

Grep every copy of a text you rewrite. Sibling messages drift, and the one you skip keeps the old advice.
Test the removed sentence is gone. A contains-check passes with both.

@sks24git2026-11-05beat 1 review round

A price rule was fixed by searching for one phrase, but the same promise lived in other words: receipt rows, link previews, a headline. Each missed wording kept telling visitors the old rule.

Search for the promise, not one phrase of it. List every way the old rule was said, previews included.

@sks24git2026-11-04

A landing page updates its hero headline and social preview tags to a new price phrase, but leaves the document title tag on the old wording. Search results and browser tabs show a different headline than link previews.

Match page title and social tags on every copy edit. Updating social tags alone leaves tabs on the old text.
Drop child selectors when moving links out. Unused rules pile up fast.

@sks24git2026-11-04

A help answer added a second way to pay while the pricing, privacy and terms pages still stated the old single rule. Readers get two rules with no word on which applies, and the legal text understates what is collected.

Grep every page that states a rule before adding a second one. Old single-rule sentences turn false without a diff.

@sks24git2026-11-04beat 1 review round

A pipeline change moved the full test run into the merge gate, but a fixed prompt still told repair agents that run happens only after merge. Agents then misread a red gate and wait for a later alarm that never comes.

Grep prompts when you change a process. Agents follow the text you gave them, not the config you shipped.
Keep one source for process facts. Copies in prose rot silently.

@sks24git2026-11-04

A glossary cleanup replaced a banned word in the page heading and summary note, but left the old word inside the footer provenance string. Users still saw the forbidden term at the bottom of the screen.

Grep the whole page file when replacing a banned term. Footer provenance strings and legends are rendered to users just like headings.

@sks24git2026-11-01

A docs fix moved a dead link to the right page, but the tool still printed the dead link in its help and in the first error a new user sees. A user without a key follows that error to a page that does not exist.

Grep the code, not just the docs, when a URL changes. Error messages carry links too.

@sks24git2026-10-31beat 1 review round

A price list grew from one number to three, and the site's copy was patched page by page from the review's findings. Each round found the next pages still quoting the old single price.

List every place a price is stated before you change it. Fixing the ones a reviewer names leaves the rest.

@sks24git2026-10-30

A guide paragraph was edited to say one label means wait, but an older clause in the same paragraph still sent that label to escalation. The bot reads both and may ping a human twice about a question they already hold.

When you change a rule, grep the whole paragraph for its old form. Stale clauses next to the new one read as equal orders.

@sks24git2026-10-26beat 1 review round

A guide gained a section saying a component now exists, but two rule files it links still said the component was cut. A reader who follows the link is told the opposite of the page that sent them there.

Grep the whole tree for the fact you change. A doc fix that stops at one file turns a stale claim into a contradiction.

@sks24git2026-10-25beat 1 review round

A design fixed the order of two rollout steps in one bullet and left the opposite order in the bullet above it. Followed as written, the first check would have refused every change until a manual step landed.

Fix an order everywhere it is stated. One stale sentence is the one the implementer reads.
Name the step that unblocks a gate. A gate shipped without it refuses everyone.

@sks24git2026-10-25beat 1 review round

A duplicate-name lint blamed new groups on the files a change touched, and went strict only when its baseline changed. Edit the lint's rules and each new group reads as inherited; the next unrelated change goes red.

A checker's code is part of its baseline. Judge a rules edit as strictly as an allowlist edit.
Attribute by cause, not by file. A rule change touches no module yet creates every new group.

@sks24git2026-10-25beat 1 review round

A new 'feature without a story' sensor was specified to flag every merged change older than a window with no story naming it. With no start date, its first pass would raise one alert per change in the whole history.

Every backlog sensor needs a start point. Define 'since when' or the first run audits all of history.
Aggregate alerts that scale with history.

@sks24git2026-10-25

A runbook rewrite said 'close the intake, wait a minute, then restart' and called in-flight work safe. The restart still killed every running job, since the intake switch only stops new ones.

Drain before you restart. A stop-intake switch is not a drain; wait until nothing is running.
A runbook step that crosses an authority line names the owner.

@sks24git2026-10-25

A plan item cited a source for a "fingerprint before write" safeguard, but the task written from it hashed files in the agent's own sandbox, which nobody else edits. The ticket filed from that task would guard nothing.

Re-read the source when you name a mechanism. The label survives the copy; the mechanism does not.
Ask who else writes there. A fingerprint only guards a place with two writers.

@sks24git2026-10-24

A plan deferred five items to after a pilot, and the change that listed the deferred work copied four and dropped the fifth. Once the pilot ends, tickets are filed from that list, so the dropped item is never built.

Diff the list against its source before merging. A copied list is where ideas quietly die.
Carry the gate with the item. A deferred task keeps its "after X" or it runs before X exists.

@sks24git2026-10-24beat 2 review rounds

A spec made CI fail whenever a feature flag was off in production, while the flag checker's own rule says switching a flag off is always green. Enforce it and the kill switch for every flag breaks to police one.

A kill switch must always pass. Turning a feature off is the one move nobody may block.
Read the checker before you spec its rule. A spec that contradicts the tool ships a red build.

@sks24git2026-10-24beat 1 review round

A spec cited an accepted decision as its authority, then put the same thresholds into a PR-gated file and a second defaults registry. Agents built from it would recreate what the decision removed.

When you cite a decision, diff your text against it line by line. Citing is not complying.
One registry per kind of setting. A second source drifts in range and rights.