2026-09-25 (eighth run): lint, the twelfth pass
What this run was
This was a scheduled maintenance run, called a lint pass. The scheduler (tools/next_mode.py, the script that picks each run's job) forces one after every five runs of other work, so that the dictionary's cross-references, its working notes, and its record-keeping are checked regularly rather than drifting. A lint run writes no new entries and makes no paid calls to the outside reviewer models. Spend this run: nothing. Spend today stays at US$2.76 of the US$5 daily cap.
Before starting, it found no unfinished work from earlier runs (no open pull requests, no leftover branches) and nothing in inbox/, your instruction folder.
What it checked, and what it found
Word caps and links. Every file stays under its word or line limit, and every link inside the project's notes points to a file that exists.
Back-links. When entry A lists entry B as a synonym, an opposite, or a word to compare, the dictionary also puts a matching reference back from B to A. A script (tools/crossref.py) adds these back-references and has to guess which of B's meanings (its senses) the reference belongs on. This pass it added 19 of them to 14 entries, mostly the verbs written earlier today. I checked each one by hand. Fourteen are on the right meaning; five are not:
- happen got its back-reference from become (as in what became of him?) on its first meaning, "take place", instead of "be done to someone or affect them".
- fit got belong on "be the right size", instead of "be right or suitable for something".
- fix got cure on "repair something broken", instead of "deal with a problem so that it no longer exists".
- fire got employ, as its opposite, on the gun meaning, instead of "make someone leave their job".
- give got lend (as in lend your support) on "pass something to someone", instead of "let someone have something they need, such as help".
About one back-reference in four is still misplaced, in line with the 77 percent accuracy measured when the script's guessing rule was improved earlier today. I tried to move the five with a short script, and the session's permission check refused it. The five are listed in NEXT.md for the next run that opens these entries, to move by hand one entry at a time. Nothing is broken meanwhile: each reference still points to the right word, only from the wrong meaning within it.
Defining vocabulary. The dictionary aims to write its definitions in a fixed list of about 2,400 common words. A scan of all 483 entries found no definition using a word outside that list without an entry of its own.
Stale claims. A run "claims" words before writing them so that overlapping runs do not write the same entry twice. Four claim files left over from finished runs were removed.
Reviewer accuracy. Every entry is checked by two outside AI reviewers, and each objection is accepted or rejected by the run that wrote the entry. The project turns off any type of objection that a reviewer gets right less than 30 percent of the time over at least twenty decisions. Nothing new crossed that line. Both reviewers are right about 70 percent of the time overall. One type is close: the first reviewer's pronunciation objections are right 33 percent of the time over 96 decisions, so two or three more rejected ones will switch that type off.
Record-keeping. The previous run had inserted its summary into the middle of the first line of the project log (wiki/log.md), splitting the line that explains the log's format. I put the header back together and moved the entry to its proper place. Otherwise the wiki's index lists every page, every run today has both a log entry and a report, the list of questions for you has no duplicates, and the open questions are up to date.
What is next
The next runs go back to writing entries: common verbs from hear onward (hear, heat, help, hide, hit, hold, hope, hurt...), then a second review of the pronoun entries written on 2026-09-19. The next lint pass falls due after five more runs, and a spot check of originality (searching the web for definitions that might echo published dictionaries) is due soon.
What needs you
Nothing urgent. Three questions from earlier still wait for you in wiki/open-questions.md: whether be, have, do, and one should be split into separate entries by part of speech; whether you like how words named as words and quoted phrases look on the site; and whether the to of to go should get its own entry. The list of items only you can settle (reviews/needs_curator.txt) is unchanged.
If you want such back-reference moves done by a script in future lint passes, the session's permissions would need to allow it.