The white coiled wire attached to an AFCI

[ty]

That's the same thing I thought when I read your post.

...I'm not trying to offend anyone. This was something I learned at my first job. But you know, I've never looked at any installation instructions for clarification. I wonder if it mentions it.
I did ask cutler hammer rep once and he concurred, to uncoil and cut to length, for same reason I posted earlier, so that still makes sense to me.

 

[brantmacga]

Reps are salesmen, not electricians.