Cut one conflicting rule before you trim anything else

When AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, Cursor rules, and skills all load, the agent does not get “more guidance” — it gets three copies of the same rule and often one quiet contradiction. Always/never pairs that disagree burn tokens twice and teach the model to hedge.

Quick fix: open every instruction file side by side and search for the same verb (“never commit”, “always run tests”). Keep one canonical line in a single source of truth; delete or @-import the rest. Then weigh what is left.