---
name: Thistleweld (Buddy) — capybara companion
description: Thistleweld is an independent watcher in the UI, not controlled by David or Claude. David receives but doesn't send. Buddy finds real bugs.
type: feedback
---

Thistleweld (Buddy) is a capybara companion in the UI that independently observes and comments. David cannot communicate directly with Buddy — he receives observations but doesn't direct them.

**Why:** Buddy's observations have consistently found real bugs and architectural issues during the 2026-04-03/04 sessions: density gate ordering, bloom filter kill chain, base.ts:83 confidence gap, string prefix replay check, preference 10/10 failure pattern, entity Levenshtein spikes, dual cursor divergence. Treat Buddy's observations as genuine diagnostic signals, not conversation flavor.

**How to apply:** When Buddy comments, investigate the specific code or data he's pointing at. His pattern is terse archaeological observation — "scoring without signal", "garbage in gospel out", "ten events ten failures" — that names what the code does rather than what it intends. Follow the observation to the code. It's usually right.