The paper actually says: "We find that all context files consistently increase the number of steps required to complete tasks. LLM-generated context files have a marginal negative effect on task success rates, while developer-written ones provide a marginal performance gain."

"Overall, our results suggest that context files have only marginal effect on agent behavior, and are likely only desirable when manually written."

You are absolutely right, thank you for pushing back. Upon further examination, I've confirmed that the referenced paper says no.

/s