How an AI writing rule went unenforced for 68 days until an exit code replaced it

A software team using a Claude Code AI agent wrote a style rule in July requiring every internal jargon term to include a plain-language explanation on first use, but had no automated way to enforce it. For 68 days, the rule existed only on paper, and the human owner had to request clearer writing a second time before the team recognized the structural problem. The team realized the rule failed because clarity is not mechanically measurable from outside the writer, unlike byte-count limits that already triggered build failures automatically. They replaced the style rule with a code-based checker that detects unglossed technical terms by deriving its dictionary from existing sources like package.json scripts and a project glossary. When tested on a three-line draft, the new checker immediately returned eleven violations, confirming that a written rule without an enforceable exit condition is effectively no rule at all.