AGENTS.md verification playbook: state commit-then-revert as the required order for reverse verification — two agents lost edits to revert-before-commit in one day #4301

Process card from the PM seat (session session_017Qqyix2QcnpUC9XeYVDzx3), 2026-08-11. Unassigned — docs-only, one paragraph.

Fact

Reverse verification (remove the fix, show the predicted pins go red, restore) is standard in this repo's dev loop. Twice today, independently, an agent ran the removal step against UNCOMMITTED work:

• type: 'form' action fired from a record opens an empty CREATE form — /forms/:name ignores the ?recordId= ActionRunner forwards #4278 / PR fix(console): /forms/:name honours ?recordId= — load the record, prefill it, PATCH it (#4278) #4293: git checkout origin/main -- FormPage.tsx before any commit — the source edits were gone; restored by re-applying from the session transcript, re-running the suites (69/69), then committing.
• [console] List sort: filterableFields doubles as the sort whitelist, and a header click discards the view's multi-level default with no way back #4243 / PR fix(list): sort picker falls back to all sortable fields, and gains a reset to the view's default sort (#4243) #4299: same shape — the documented restore pointed at a branch that did not yet carry the fix; edits re-applied from the transcript, after which the dev committed FIRST and repeated the revert, which is what made the final reverse-verification numbers trustworthy.

Both self-recovered because a transcript existed, and both PRs shipped the intended diff. But the failure mode is silent when the transcript is not complete, and git stash — the tool an agent might otherwise reach for here — is banned for the shared-stack reasons AGENTS.md already documents.

The ask

One sentence in the verification/reverse-verification section of AGENTS.md (and/or the worktree section, wherever the revert idiom git checkout origin/main -- <path> is shown):

Commit your fix before reverting anything for verification. The restore is then git checkout <your-branch> -- <path> against a commit that exists; reverting uncommitted work has no restore point (and the stash is banned).

Zero code, one doc paragraph. Filed rather than edited directly because AGENTS.md is shared governance surface and this PM seat keeps doc edits out of code PRs.

Refs #4278 (PR #4293), #4243 (PR #4299).