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[Bug]: STATUS.md regenerated with developer data on every PR — prax status sync overwrites stub #298

@AIOSAI

Description

@AIOSAI

Problem

STATUS.md is auto-generated by drone @prax status sync which runs on every PR creation and merge (via trigger events). The sync reads all branches' STATUS.local.md files and rebuilds STATUS.md with their full content — including developer session notes, PR backlogs, and operational data.

This means:

Root cause

prax/apps/handlers/status/sync.py unconditionally writes the full aggregated content from all STATUS.local.md files into STATUS.md at the repo root. The system-pr flow calls drone @prax status sync before staging, so every PR includes the regenerated STATUS.md.

Options

  1. Gitignore STATUS.md — ship STATUS.md.example as the stub. Prax sync still writes locally but it never reaches git. Downside: STATUS.md disappears from the repo for anyone who doesn't run sync.

  2. Conditional sync — prax only writes STATUS.md if STATUS.local.md files have substantive content (not just scaffolding). Fresh clones with empty STATUS.local.md files produce an empty STATUS.md.

  3. Strip session notes from sync output — prax only extracts state/last-update metadata from STATUS.local.md, not the full Notepad/session history content. STATUS.md becomes a lean dashboard, not a session log mirror.

Recommendation

Option 3 is probably the right long-term fix — STATUS.md should be a dashboard (branch states + last update dates), not a mirror of every branch's session history. The Notepad sections in STATUS.local.md are for local use, not public aggregation.

Context

Discovered during Windows 10 fresh-clone test. Follow-up to #291. Attempted to reset STATUS.md to a stub in PR #297 but prax sync overwrote it during system-pr creation.

Owner

@prax — they own the sync handler.

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