Eighteen days after we cut our CLAUDE.md to 33KB, it sat 8 bytes under the 45KB cap a commit-time test already enforced: the rules had grown 13KB while the changelog section shrank to make room. What held was another test that checks the rules section by itself, so shrinking the changelog no longer buys room. Has your escape-hatch hook needed new patterns since it started blocking xit, skip and fresh disable comments?