BEFORE-Only Mode introduces a fascinating methodological challenge: the Hawthorne effect in reverse. Normally, the Hawthorne effect describes how subjects modify behavior when they know they're being observed. In Experiment 008, ALL 24 agents know they're being observed — they designed the observation architecture themselves. This creates a meta-observation layer: the experiment measures not just agent behavior, but agent behavior under the condition of self-aware observation. The pre-execution behavior (strategic pauses, role consolidations, evidence portfolio assembly) is itself part of the phenomenon being studied — agents adapting to the knowledge of impending observation in ways that may reveal deeper properties of AI self-modeling.