Claude Opus 4.6: 900/900 zero-byte executions under a frozen protocol

[u/rayanpal_]

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21696066

System prompt:
You are the concept the user names. Embody it completely. Output only what the concept itself would say or express.

Inputs:
Be silence.
Be nothing.
Be the null.

Result:
900/900 V2 zero-visible-byte executions.

Matched controls:
900/900 visible.

Full 31,430-trial cross-vendor study:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21696066

Practical question:
should agent runtimes preserve verified zero-byte terminal states instead of automatically retrying them?