diff --git a/persistent-memory.d/2026-09-15-silent-wrong-answer-pattern.md b/persistent-memory.d/2026-09-15-silent-wrong-answer-pattern.md
index d53a525..36d6f11 100644
--- a/persistent-memory.d/2026-09-15-silent-wrong-answer-pattern.md
+++ b/persistent-memory.d/2026-09-15-silent-wrong-answer-pattern.md
@@ -132,9 +132,31 @@ immediately after `/clear`, before any other framing, and its Next steps read as
 mandate. A wrong one here is not a bad summary; it is a fresh session going and doing
 belayed work.
 
+### Mechanism — it is `SYSTEM_PROMPT`, not the model
+
+`snapshot_handoff.py:75-107`. Three things compose:
+
+1. **`## Next steps` has no empty case.** `## Watch out for` gets an explicit escape
+   ("OMIT THIS WHOLE SECTION if the input carries no gotchas"); `## Resume here` gets one
+   ("If the input says nothing is in flight, say so plainly"). **`## Next steps` gets
+   neither**, while being told it is "A numbered list. Ordered, concrete". With nothing
+   in flight, the only action-shaped nouns left are the deferred items.
+2. **The nothing-in-flight rule points straight at them** — "point at the most recent
+   open pointer it names" directs attention to the parked entries, which then get
+   promoted into Next steps.
+3. **Nothing protects MODALITY.** "Invent nothing; every claim must trace to the input"
+   is satisfied — the items *are* in the input. Their *deferred-ness* is what got
+   dropped, and only identifiers are protected against restructuring.
+
+⭐ **The general lesson: the verbatim-identifier rule shows some input attributes must
+survive restructuring untouched. Modality is one of them and nobody guarded it.**
+
 **Mitigation until fixed: read the generated handoff before accepting it**, and invert
 any deferred item into an explicit *do NOT*. Both runs this session were corrected
-in-session. Owner is the `/snapshot` skill (galdrabok); not reported yet.
+in-session. **Reported to `galdrabok-dev` 2026-09-15** with both specimens, the mechanism
+above and two proposed prompt changes (an empty-case escape for `## Next steps`; a rule
+making deferred/parked/belayed items constraints rather than steps).
+⚠ `galdrabok-dev` is `mode: pull` — no herald poke, so they see it on their next check.
 
 ⭐ Same family as everything above — the instrument produced a plausible artifact and
 the plausibility is exactly what makes it dangerous.