---
name: retraction-sweeps-diagnostic-strings
description: "A retracted claim also lives in assert!/panic! messages and log text, not just doc comments — sweep the strings the code PRINTS."
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: feedback
  originSessionId: d35eee0f-40f8-453d-a495-005b948d382e
  modified: 2026-08-03T06:49:17.408Z
---

After retracting a false explanation, I fixed the doc comment and thought the sweep was done. The
same false sentence was still embedded in the `assert!` failure message — so the gate, when it fired,
PRINTED the retracted claim at whoever it was failing for. Diagnostic strings are documentation that
only appears at the worst moment, which makes a stale one worse than a stale comment.

**Why:** IR-18. My Copy-vs-Pointer story about where a service's binary resolves was falsified at the
computed site (`servicehost.rs` takes `install_dir` from `record.source_dir` in BOTH registration
modes; COPY never copies binaries). I replaced it in the doc comment. Mutation A then failed the
derivation check and echoed the false sentence back at me from the assertion text. Precedent: the
empty-stderr retraction, where I named two sites and deployah found six.

**How to apply:** on any retraction, grep the diff for the CLAIM's terms — not the file you
remember — across doc comments, `assert!`/`panic!`/`expect` messages, `eprintln!` evidence lines,
commit text, and any message already routed to another agent. "Naming the sites I remember is not
sweeping." Also: verify a claim at the site that COMPUTES the value, not from the inference you
already published — a fact true of manifests was generalized to binaries without checking that the
consumer agreed. Related: [[correct-by-replacement-not-annotation]],
[[amendment-falsifies-more-than-named]], [[doc-audit-reads-whole-file]],
[[structural-fact-must-survive-rederivation]].