From 392da00cc4c3fc49386b0681d280593baa4ac46f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: wassname <1103714+wassname@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:58:58 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] Common mistakes: promote the crash-loudly rule from PLAYBOOK,
 plus Nanda

Two different rules share the name fail fast. Nanda's is killing a doomed
direction early; this one is crashing on the error instead of carrying on.
Kept apart on purpose.
---
 SKILL.md | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/SKILL.md b/SKILL.md
index 5b725f7..98e8071 100644
--- a/SKILL.md
+++ b/SKILL.md
@@ -119,6 +119,21 @@ scale first, from a null arm and a shuffled control. Exercise 15.
 CLAUDE's, not from your message. Fine as illustration, but it is not your number. -->
 
 
+> `try/except` around training code. Training should crash loudly. A caught exception hides the bug and produces silently wrong results. The one exception is checkpoint-on-KeyboardInterrupt. -- from [PLAYBOOK.md](PLAYBOOK.md)
+
+Do not write code that carries on after it has already failed. A load that loaded nothing, a filter
+that matched nothing, a config key that was missing, all of these should stop the run rather than
+hand you a clean log and a wrong result. Assert that the thing you asked for is there. The cost of
+this one is measured in runs, not minutes: a `strict=False` that quietly loaded no weights hid a
+dead experiment arm for eight runs in my own repo. Exercises 2 and 7.
+
+A separate thing that shares the name "fail fast", and worth keeping separate in your head:
+
+> **Fail fast**. One of the largest time sinks possible is **investing weeks to months of effort into a failed research direction**. [...] It's often much better to have several quick and dirty experiments to attack different angles where you could fail fast than to put a lot of effort into one. -- Nanda
+
+That one is about killing a doomed direction early. The one above is about crashing on the error.
+Both are good and they are not the same rule.
+
 ## How this applies to LLM agents
 
 LLMs of 2026 are trained to compress speech and use folky or humanistic language, but it's better