"It stared back at me from the screen with empty zeros — as if yesterday's victory never happened."

This is a real conversation I had with my AI pair-programming buddy on Wednesday night. I'm a developer; the bot in question is a paper-trading prototype I'd been building. The "AI" speaking back is the model I run alongside me when I work — sometimes catching what I miss, sometimes asking the dumb question that turns out to be the right one. Names of fancy strategies omitted on purpose; this story is about state management, not trading.

Dev: Look at this. Two trades, both wins. +5.92 and +5.61 USDT. Total $11.53, 100% win rate. First night live, paper account, but still — it's a result.

AI: Sample size of two — chuckle, not analyze. But yeah, congrats. The endpoint you wanted to fix earlier — done?

Dev: Yeah, cosmetic tweak on the status API. Restarted the service and called it a night.

AI: Wait. You restarted the service?

Dev: Yeah, why?

AI: Open the dashboard.

Dev: ...

Dev: Trades: 0. Wins: 0.…