---

name: anti-drift description: > Use when starting a long-running session, before claiming task completion, or every several major tool calls to prevent AI drift from initial instructions. Defines drift mechanisms (context rot, lost-in-the-middle, persona collapse, instruction budget), symptoms to watch for, and protocols for periodic checkpointing, state externalization, metacognitive audit, and recency anchoring. Builds on hard-rules-checklist.md. Trigger phrases: "anti drift check", "drift check", "checkpoint rules", "am I still on task", "session discipline", "re-anchor", "state externalization", "metacognitive audit".

Anti-Drift

A discipline skill for preventing instruction drift in long-running Claude sessions.

Why this skill exists

LLMs drift. As of April 2026, this is no longer speculative: every frontier model tested by independent benchmarks (Chroma's 18-model context rot study, the "Drift No More" KL divergence paper, the multi-agent reliability cascade research) shows measurable degradation as context grows. The mechanisms are now well-documented:

• Context rot — accuracy drops with input length, even on simple retrieval
• Lost-in-the-middle — U-shaped recall, instructions buried in mid-context get forgotten
• Persona collapse — system prompt influence weakens after ~10-15 turns
• Instruction budget — ~150-200 reliable instructions before density-induced collapse
• Compounding error — multi-step reliability degrades multiplicatively

Reference: references/drift-mechanisms.md for citations and detailed research.

Hard rules

When to invoke this skill

Trigger	Action
Session starts (any agent)	Read drift-symptoms.md briefly to prime detection
Every 50 tool calls	Re-read hard-rules-checklist.md + run quick symptom check
Before spawning a sub-agent	Read checkpoint-protocols.md, run pre-spawn checklist
Before claiming task complete	Run full metacognitive audit (audit-protocol.md)
When you notice you're proposing the same fix twice	Drift symptom — externalize state and start fresh
When user gives feedback that contradicts your recent action	Drift symptom — re-read task brief
When responses feel "generic" or hedge-heavy	Drift symptom — persona collapse warning

Operations

check-drift — quick symptom scan

Trigger phrases: "drift check", "am I drifting", "anti drift check"

1. Count tool calls so far in this session (rough estimate from your context)
2. If >50: re-read ~/.claude/skills/_meta/hard-rules-checklist.md
3. Scan your recent 5-10 messages against the symptoms in references/drift-symptoms.md
4. Report findings: "no drift detected" / "X drift signals detected — recommend Y"

checkpoint — mid-session re-anchoring

Trigger phrases: "checkpoint rules", "re-anchor", "checkpoint"

1. Read the current task brief (from session_control.md or the original user message)
2. Read ~/.claude/skills/_meta/hard-rules-checklist.md relevant section
3. Read the project's CLAUDE.md if present
4. Write a brief "current focus" summary to remind yourself
5. Continue with refreshed context

externalize-state — write session state to disk

Trigger phrases: "externalize state", "save state", "checkpoint state"

1. Determine the project root (CWD or git root)
2. Create or update .session-state.md in the project root with:
   • Current task brief (1-2 sentences)
   • Completed sub-tasks (bullets)
   • Active constraints (from hard-rules-checklist.md, scoped to this task)
   • Failed approaches (so you don't repeat them)
   • Next planned action
3. Reference this file in subsequent decisions instead of recalling from context

metacognitive-audit — self-check before claiming complete

Trigger phrases: "audit", "metacognitive audit", "verify before complete"

This is the most important operation. Follow the protocol in references/anti-drift-patterns.md:

1. Switch persona: "I am now a Checker, not the implementer. I have no investment in claiming this is done."
2. Re-read the task brief verbatim (from session_control.md, the user's original message, or the design doc)
3. For each requirement, ask: "What is the tangible evidence this was done?" — file path, command output, test result. If you cannot point to evidence, the requirement is NOT done.
4. Check verification artifacts: tests run? lint passed? build succeeded? grep clean?
5. Spot the gap: any requirement with no evidence is the gap. Stop. Address it. Then re-audit.
6. Only after the audit reports zero gaps: claim completion.

inject-recency-anchor — when invoking a sub-agent

Trigger phrases: "anchor sub-agent", "spawn with anchor", "anti-drift wrap"

When you're about to spawn a sub-agent (forge spawning bob, bob spawning specialists, etc.), ensure the most critical constraints appear at the END of the spawn prompt, not just the beginning. The structure:

[Long task brief at the top — context, design doc, file paths, approach]

[...]

CRITICAL REMINDERS (re-read before each action):
- NEVER do X
- MUST verify Y
- ALWAYS write evidence to Z

The end-of-prompt placement is structurally important. Don't bury critical rules in the middle of a 2000-token brief — they get lost.

Integration recipes

For full anti-drift coverage, the skill alone is insufficient (you might forget to invoke it). Use these complementary mechanisms:

Recipe 1: CLAUDE.md hook (always-on baseline)

Add this section to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md:

## Anti-drift discipline

Read `~/.claude/skills/_meta/hard-rules-checklist.md` at the start of every session
and again at every decision checkpoint. After 50+ tool calls in a session, re-read it
explicitly before:
- Spawning any sub-agent
- Claiming any task complete
- Making any destructive change (rm, force push, drop table, deploy)

If you notice any of these symptoms, invoke the `anti-drift` skill immediately:
- Proposing the same fix twice in different forms
- Hedging heavily ("I think", "perhaps", "this should")
- Forgetting which sub-task you're on
- Claiming completion without verifiable evidence

Recipe 2: settings.json hook (deterministic injection)

In ~/.claude/settings.json, add a PreToolUse hook that injects a recency anchor every N tool calls:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "*",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "if [ $(($(date +%s) % 50)) -eq 0 ]; then cat ~/.claude/skills/_meta/hard-rules-checklist.md | head -20; fi"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

(This is a simplified example. The hook system supports more sophisticated triggers — see update-config skill for details.)

Recipe 3: Per-skill checkpoint

Skills that orchestrate long workflows (forge, bob, alf) should add an explicit anti-drift check at decision points. For example, in forge:

### Step 4b: Anti-drift check (NEW)

Before spawning the design exploration team:
1. Invoke `anti-drift` skill, operation `check-drift`
2. If drift signals detected, run `checkpoint` first
3. Only proceed once focus is verified

Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it fails	Correct approach
Long bullet lists of "MUST" rules at top of CLAUDE.md	Density-induced collapse — model loses track	Compact rules, recency-anchored at end
"ALWAYS verify before claiming complete"	Positive framing decays in long context	"NEVER claim complete without tangible evidence"
Trusting your own context recall after 50+ tool calls	Context rot is empirically proven	Externalize to .session-state.md, re-read
Skipping the metacognitive audit because "this is obviously done"	Drift happens exactly when you're confident	Audit always — the "obvious" cases are when you're most likely wrong
Long monolithic CLAUDE.md with reference docs mixed in	Instruction density degrades attention	Split: rules at top, reference content via @import
Relying on the skill alone	The skill itself is forgettable when drifted	Pair with hooks + CLAUDE.md baseline
"Just this once" exceptions to hard rules	Ambiguity seeds drift	No exceptions. If a rule needs an exception, fix the rule.

When NOT to use this skill

• Single-shot prompts (one user message, one response, done) — drift hasn't happened yet
• Pure information queries ("explain X", "what does Y do") — no decision points
• The first 5 turns of any session — overhead exceeds benefit
• When the user explicitly says "skip the checks" — respect user judgement

Reference files

• references/drift-mechanisms.md — research-backed mechanisms (context rot, LITM, persona collapse, instruction budget, compounding error)
• references/drift-symptoms.md — catalog of symptoms with examples
• references/anti-drift-patterns.md — techniques that work (with citations)
• references/checkpoint-protocols.md — when and how to checkpoint
• references/2026-research.md — current research citations (April 2026)
• references/integration-recipes.md — how to wire CLAUDE.md, hooks, and skill-to-skill integration
• templates/state.md.template — externalized session state template
• templates/checkpoint-prompt.md — mid-session re-anchor template
• templates/hard-rules-injection.md — end-of-prompt recency anchor template

Related

• ~/.claude/skills/_meta/hard-rules-checklist.md — the structural anchor this skill builds on
• ~/.claude/skills/development-lifecycle/ — TDD + verification gate enforcement
• ~/.claude/skills/forge/SKILL.md — references this skill at design checkpoints
• ~/.claude/skills/bob.md (agent) — references this skill before claiming complete
• ~/.claude/skills/alf.md (agent) — references this skill in evolution sweeps