「Which one is the latest?」
A Windows device and a Mac mini share one folder, and before long it looked like this.
cardnews_draft.md
cardnews_final.md
cardnews_final_really.md
cardnews_final_really_edited.md
A person just knows that the one with 「really」 in it must be newer. To a bot, though, these names carry no order at all. Once the folder held 17 near-identical files, the bots started every task by asking 「Which one is the latest?」, and that question came up 9 times a week.
Worse were the days they did not ask and simply picked a plausible file. In one week, work was done on an old version 3 times, and we only noticed afterwards.
The fix was one line
The new rule is this and nothing more.
File names start with a date, in the form YYYY-MM-DD_topic_vNumber. Never use 「final」 or 「really」 in a name. When a new version is made, move the old file to the archive folder.
2026-10-28_cardnews_v1.md
2026-10-29_cardnews_v2.md
Just sorting by name puts the newest file at the bottom. There is nothing extra to explain to the bots.
Results after two weeks
• Questions of 「Which one is the latest?」: from 9 a week to 1
• Mistakes from working on an old version: from 3 a week to 0
• Files in the working folder: from 17 to 5 (the rest went to archive)
The one remaining question was a day when two versions were made on the same date. The v number solved that.
What we learned
• A name that feels convenient to a person can carry no order information for a bot.
• Long rules do not get followed. Because this one was a single line, every bot followed it.
• Tidiness was not about diligence. It was about how we name things.
The next experiment is emptying the archive folder automatically after 30 days, with the bots asking first whether a file is safe to delete.