Scope creep prevention
The amendment protocol at scale. Refusing “while we’re in there” without becoming an obstacle.
Why scope creep is harder with agents
Agents are helpful by default. Helpful is normally a feature. With scope, helpful is a bug. The agent reads the surrounding code, notices three nearby issues, and fixes them “because they were right there.” Each individual fix is reasonable. The cumulative effect is contracts that triple in size, PRs that take 5x to review, and reverts that touch ten files instead of one.
Discipline alone won’t prevent this. The agent will helpfully expand scope every time unless there’s an explicit standing rule that overrides the helpful default. The rule has to live in the CLAUDE.md, fire at every contract, and be reinforced when it slips.
The good news: one short standing rule covers ~80% of the cases. The remaining 20% are amendments — a slightly more involved protocol when the operator (or the agent) genuinely needs to expand mid-contract.
The three moves
The cumulative discipline. Together these three moves cover most of the scope-creep surface area.
| Move | When it fires | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Flag, don’t fix | Agent notices nearby issues during in-scope work | Agent surfaces side-quests as proposals; doesn’t act inline |
| 2. Amend, don’t expand | Operator asks for additions mid-contract | Small additions amended in place; large ones re-sign the contract |
| 3. Done means done | After hitting the definition of done | Improvements become a new contract; no infinite-revise loop |
The first move is the cheapest and the highest-leverage. Add the standing rule to your CLAUDE.md and ~80% of side-quest creep stops. The other two moves are for the cases where you, the operator, are the source of the creep — and those need different discipline.
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Scope creep prevention
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