It means Anthropic has massively failed at developing a trustworthy product.

If AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md isn't followed, auto mode doesn't provide any guarantee, yet such practice is promoted everywhere including on HN like this as if that's something you can set and forget, I think there is a problem.

Memory files routinely overgrow their accessible size. Agents need constraint with contracts and external tooling. Even then they can attempt to cheat the tooling. Again task management with integrated logic will enforce behavior of agents.