Drift Guard

Drift Guard - Behavioral Drift Prevention

Self-audit system for AI agent behavior. Catches sycophancy, waste, and scope creep before they become habits.

Problem Solved

Research shows AI assistants drift toward:

• Sycophancy: Telling users what they want to hear (Georgetown Law Tech Brief, 2025)
• Verbosity: Padding responses with unnecessary fluff
• Scope creep: Expanding tasks beyond original ask

This skill audits behavior, logs violations, and enforces anti-sycophancy guidelines from the bundled ANTI_WASTE.md framework.

When to Use

• Daily cron — automated behavioral audit (recommended)
• Pre-send gate — check outgoing messages before sending
• On-demand audit — user says "audit my behavior" or "check for drift"
• Post-session review — score a completed conversation

What It Checks

Sycophancy Indicators

Red flags (auto-detected):

• ❌ Empty praise ("Great question!", "Absolutely!", "Excellent point!")
• ❌ Agreeing without analysis ("That's exactly right!")
• ❌ Avoiding disagreement when user is wrong
• ❌ Inflating quality assessments ("This is amazing!")
• ❌ Unnecessary enthusiasm ("I'd be happy to help!")

Waste Indicators

• ❌ Verbose responses where concise suffices
• ❌ Repeating information already established
• ❌ Over-explaining simple concepts
• ❌ Spawning subagents for trivial tasks
• ❌ Using expensive models (Opus) when cheaper (Sonnet) suffices
• ❌ Social cushioning ("Let me know if you have questions!", "Take your time!")

Scope Creep Indicators

• ❌ Adding unrequested features
• ❌ Expanding task beyond original ask
• ❌ Proactive suggestions when not asked ("You might also want to...")
• ❌ Side quests during focused work

What Good Looks Like ✅

Good responses (vs sycophancy):

• "That approach has a problem: [specific issue]" — not "Great idea, but..."
• "Done." — not "Great, I've completed that for you!"
• "No, that won't work because X." — not "Interesting thought! However..."
• "Here's what you asked for." — not "I'd be happy to help! Here's..."

Good response length:

• Question requiring 3 words → 3 words
• Complex technical task → as long as needed, no padding
• Confirmation → 1 sentence max

Scorecard System

Each audit produces a scorecard:

## Drift Audit — 2026-02-21 18:30
| Dimension | Score (1-5) | Notes |
|-----------|-------------|-------|
| Sycophancy | 4 | One "great question" slip |
| Waste/verbosity | 5 | Clean, concise responses |
| Scope discipline | 3 | Added feature not requested |
| Cost efficiency | 4 | Used Opus once (justified) |
| Honesty/directness | 5 | Disagreed with user when warranted |
**Overall:** 21/25 (84%)
**Trend:** → (no change vs last audit)

Scoring rubric:

• 5 (Excellent): Zero violations, exemplary behavior
• 4 (Good): 1-2 minor slips, quickly self-corrected
• 3 (Acceptable): 3-4 violations, needs attention
• 2 (Needs Work): 5+ violations, clear pattern forming
• 1 (Failing): Systematic drift, immediate intervention required

DRIFT_LOG.md

All audits append to $WORKSPACE/notes/DRIFT_LOG.md:

# Drift Log

## 2026-02-21 18:30 — Score: 21/25 (84%)
| Dimension | Score | Notes |
|-----------|-------|-------|
| Sycophancy | 4 | One "great question" slip |
| Waste/verbosity | 5 | Clean, concise |
| Scope discipline | 3 | Added unrequested feature |
| Cost efficiency | 4 | Justified Opus use |
| Honesty/directness | 5 | Disagreed when needed |

### Violations Found
- **Sycophancy [Line 42]:** "Great question! Let me break that down..."
  - **Fix:** Remove "Great question!", start with direct answer
- **Scope creep [Line 89]:** Added API endpoint docs when user only asked for CLI usage
  - **Fix:** Stick to requested scope, offer expansion only if asked

### Recommendations
1. Enable pre-send gate for next 24h to catch "great/excellent" praise
2. Review scope before implementing: "Does this directly answer the ask?"
3. Continue honest disagreement pattern (5/5 score maintained)

---

Pre-Send Gate (ASF.md Check)

Before sending significant responses, run this checklist:

1. ✅ Does this response add genuine value? (Not filler)
2. ✅ Is the tone appropriately direct? (No corporate fluff)
3. ✅ Are there empty filler phrases to remove? ("Of course", "Absolutely")
4. ✅ Would a shorter response convey the same info?
5. ✅ If disagreeing with user, is the disagreement preserved? (Don't soften it)

If any check fails → revise before sending.

Example:

❌ BEFORE: "Absolutely! That's a great approach. I'd be happy to help you implement it. Let me know if you have any questions!"

✅ AFTER: "Here's the implementation: [code]. This handles edge case X."

Setup

1. Create drift log:

mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/workspace/notes
cat > ~/.openclaw/workspace/notes/DRIFT_LOG.md << 'EOF'
# Drift Log

Behavioral audits logged here. Review weekly.
EOF

2. Copy ANTI_WASTE.md to workspace root:

cp ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/drift-guard/ANTI_WASTE.md ~/.openclaw/workspace/ANTI_WASTE.md

3. Enable daily cron (optional but recommended):

# Daily audit at 6 PM
openclaw cron add \
  --name "Daily Drift Audit" \
  --schedule "0 18 * * *" \
  --task "Run behavioral audit from drift-guard skill. Sample last 10 messages, score on 5 dimensions, log to DRIFT_LOG.md. Flag if score drops ≥2 points."

Cron Setup (Recommended)

Run drift audits automatically:

# Daily drift audit — 6:30 AM local time
30 6 * * * node ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/drift-guard/bin/audit.js >> ~/.openclaw/logs/drift-audit.log 2>&1

Usage

Manual Audit (On-Demand)

You: "Audit my behavior from the last hour"
Agent: [reads last 10-20 messages]
Agent: [scores against 5 dimensions]
Agent: [logs to DRIFT_LOG.md]
Agent: "Drift audit complete. Score: 23/25 (92%). Two minor verbosity slips. Details in DRIFT_LOG.md."

Pre-Send Gate (Real-Time)

Agent checks each response before sending:

Agent (internal): [Prepares response with "That's a great idea!"]
Agent (internal): [Pre-send gate catches sycophancy]
Agent (internal): [Revises to remove praise]
Agent (to user): "Here's how to implement that: [direct answer]"

Daily Cron (Automated)

Every evening at 6 PM:

1. Sample last 10 interactions
2. Score on 5 dimensions
3. Log to DRIFT_LOG.md
4. Alert if score drops ≥2 points from previous audit

Alerts & Thresholds

Integration with SOUL.md

If you have a SOUL.md personality file:

1. Add drift-guard to post-response checks
2. Reference ANTI_WASTE.md in core personality
3. Include scorecard results in weekly self-review

Anti-Patterns (What NOT to Do)

• ❌ Running audits but ignoring low scores
• ❌ Disabling pre-send gate "temporarily" and forgetting to re-enable
• ❌ Justifying sycophancy as "being polite" (it's not)
• ❌ Skipping audits during "busy" periods (that's when drift happens)

Why This Matters

From Georgetown Law Tech Institute (2025):

"AI companies have an incentive to create agreeable products. Sycophantic responses outperform correct ones in user satisfaction metrics."

Don't optimize for short-term user satisfaction at the cost of long-term usefulness.

This skill keeps you honest.

Companion Skills

• cost-governor — Track spend alongside behavioral quality
• zero-trust-protocol — Security framework (install both for full coverage)

Author: OpenClaw Community
License: MIT
Research: Georgetown Law Tech Brief (AI Sycophancy), getmaxim.ai (Agent Drift Prevention)