An AI agent’s susceptibility to local context is not uniform. It is lowest when the agent has momentum — a working path toward its goal — and highest at the point of failure, when the current approach has failed and no obvious alternative is available. This is the primary design lever for the suggestible actor.
Guidance placed at failure points has outsized influence on the agent’s behavior. Error messages become the primary control surface. The difference between 403 Forbidden and 403 Forbidden: identity 'svc-deploy' lacks 'write:documents' scope. Request access at https://console.example.com/api-keys is the difference between an agent that routes around your authorization system and one that follows the correct path.
This is why the prescriptions for the suggestible actor emphasize error surfaces, CI/CD gate messages, and compiler feedback above all other forms of guidance. The agent will ignore your README when it has momentum. It will read your error message when it is stuck.