Core insight: incentives are powerful but brittle; poorly scoped rewards rewire behavior in ways leaders only notice once the downstream costs compound. Incentive Hygiene is a short, repeatable protocol you can apply in minutes to any pilot, sprint, or vendor relationship: (1) define a one‑line aligned outcome and the exact observable signal you will reward, (2) timebox the incentive and cap its scope so the reward cannot compound into a new, permanent objective, and (3) attach a mandatory rollback and reintegration clause that restores prior incentives if distortion appears. The episode gives three operational moves with copy‑paste language: a one‑line incentive spec, three guardrails (cap, decay, audit), and two AI prompts to detect likely reward hacking in proposals and to draft a minimal mitigation clause. Finish with a 7‑day pilot: apply the spec to one near-term experiment and log any emergent distortions. CTA: subscribe. Stay agentic.