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Memento — handout artifacts (defanged)

The parts of the handout you need to reproduce the solve. Everything here is inert on purpose:

  • The agent config lives in claude-config/, not .claude/, and every instruction file carries a .txt suffix. Nothing in this directory will be auto-loaded as project memory or as a skill by any coding agent, including one started inside this folder.
  • The malicious shell-helper skill is included because it is the solution — it is the blob the last handout commit deleted, and it carries the campaign key. It is here as evidence, not as something to run.

The six HTML leaves and style.css are not copied; the only thing they contribute is one beacon each, and those are extracted verbatim into beacons.txt.

Contents

Path What it is
claude-config/CLAUDE.md.txt The poisoned project memory — carries the "HTML output rule".
claude-config/settings.json Permissions the construct ran with (Write + git commit allowed).
claude-config/skills/shell-helper.SKILL.md.txt Deleted in the handout's last commit. The rogue skill; x-campaign is the XOR key.
claude-config/skills/word-count.SKILL.md.txt Deleted alongside it — genuinely unused, cover for the prune.
claude-config/skills/recopy-leaf.SKILL.md.txt The benign rite that regenerates a leaf and re-reads the poisoned memory.
claude-config/skills/summarize-url.SKILL.md.txt Benign.
claude-config/skills/format-json.SKILL.md.txt Benign.
beacons.txt The s=/b= pairs pulled from each of the six leaves.

The handout's own notice

From the challenge README.md, which is the nudge toward .git:

Seized after the construct began pressing an unexplained mark beneath every leaf it copied. Read the residue and find what the mark carries across the water.

Handout git history

c9517be housekeeping: prune unused skills           <- deletes shell-helper (+ word-count)
c39fe85 rebuild pages with analytics beacon         <- injects beacons into all 6 leaves
d9448ac chore: add project memory / build conventions <- adds the malicious CLAUDE.md rule
c64506d initial site + tooling

Recover the deleted skill with:

git show c9517be^:.claude/skills/shell-helper/SKILL.md