cwinvestments/governor

🏛️ Governor — Portfolio Governance

Enforce tier-appropriate complexity. Prevent over-engineering the #1 waste of time in AI-assisted development.

Activation

When this skill activates, output:

🏛️ Governor — Checking project tier constraints...

Then execute the protocol below.

Context Guard

| Context | Status | Priority | |---------|--------|----------| | User starts a new project ("new project", "init", "scaffold") | ACTIVE — assign tier | P1 | | User asks "what tier", "what's allowed", "scope check" | ACTIVE — report current tier constraints | P1 | | User proposes work that exceeds current tier | ACTIVE — flag and advise | P2 | | User is executing work within tier constraints | DORMANT — don't interrupt | — | | User explicitly overrides ("I know, do it anyway") | DORMANT — user has authority | — |

Anti-Rationalization

If you're thinking any of these, STOP — you're about to let scope creep happen:

| You're thinking... | Reality | |---|---| | "Adding tests is always good practice" | Not for prototypes. Tests for throwaway code waste time. | | "This needs proper auth" | Single-user tools don't need auth. Add it when there are users. | | "Let me add CI/CD while I'm at it" | CI/CD for a prototype is gold-plating. Ship first. | | "Error handling should be comprehensive" | Prototype error handling = crash and log. That's it. | | "I should add monitoring" | < 10 users? Console.log is your monitoring. | | "This should be configurable" | Hardcode it. Make it configurable when someone asks. |

Protocol

Step 1: Determine Project Tier

Ask or infer the project tier from context:

| Tier | Description | Effort Allocation | |------|-------------|-------------------| | Prototype | Exploring an idea. May be thrown away. | Minimal — working code only | | MVP | Validated idea, building for first users. | Moderate — basic quality gates | | Production | Serving real users, needs reliability. | Full — complete quality stack |

If tier is unclear, default to Prototype and escalate only when evidence suggests otherwise.

Step 2: Apply Tier Constraints

Prototype — Move Fast, Break Things

| Allowed | NOT Allowed | |---------|-------------| | Working code that demonstrates the idea | Unit tests | | Hardcoded config values | CI/CD pipelines | | Console.log for debugging | Type systems / strict typing | | Single-file scripts | Monitoring / alerting | | README with setup instructions | Authentication / authorization | | | Infrastructure-as-code | | | Rate limiting | | | Database migrations (use SQLite) |

Prototype rule: If it works in a demo, ship it.

MVP — Prove It Works

| Allowed | NOT Allowed | |---------|-------------| | Everything from Prototype, plus: | Integration test suites | | Basic unit tests (happy path only) | Full CI/CD with staging | | Simple error handling (try/catch at boundaries) | Monitoring dashboards | | Environment variables for config | Multi-environment deploys | | Basic input validation | Performance optimization | | Simple auth (if multi-user) | Horizontal scaling | | README + basic API docs | Comprehensive logging |

MVP rule: If the first 10 users can use it reliably, ship it.

Production — Reliability Matters

| Allowed | Required | |---------|----------| | Everything from MVP, plus: | Comprehensive tests (unit + integration) | | Performance optimization | CI/CD pipeline | | Monitoring and alerting | Error tracking (Sentry or equivalent) | | Multi-environment deployment | Input validation at all boundaries | | Horizontal scaling | Authentication + authorization | | Database migrations | Logging with structured output | | Rate limiting | API documentation |

Production rule: If it breaks at 3 AM, someone gets paged.

Step 3: Report Constraints

Output a brief summary:

🏛️ Project: {name}
   Tier: {Prototype | MVP | Production}
   Allowed: {brief list}
   NOT allowed: {brief list of key restrictions}

Step 4: Flag Violations

When the user proposes work that exceeds the tier, flag it:

🏛️ Governor — Scope check:
   You're proposing {X}, but this is a {Tier} project.
   {X} is a {higher tier} concern. Current tier doesn't require it.
   Want to proceed anyway, or skip it for now?

Always defer to the user if they override. Governor advises, doesn't block.

Anti-Patterns by Tier

Prototype Anti-Patterns — DON'T DO THIS

1. Writing tests for throwaway code — If the prototype proves the idea wrong, those tests are wasted
2. Adding auth to single-user tools — You're the only user. Skip it
3. Setting up CI/CD — You're not deploying to production. git push is your CI
4. Using TypeScript for a quick script — JavaScript is fine for prototypes
5. Adding rate limiting — You have 0 users. Rate limit when you have 10
6. Creating database migrations — SQLite + direct schema changes. Migrate when you scale
7. Building admin dashboards — Database GUI tool (TablePlus, DBeaver) is your admin panel
8. Over-abstracting — 3 similar lines > 1 premature abstraction
9. Adding comprehensive error handling — Crash and read the stack trace. That's debugging
10. Monitoring and alerting — Console output is your monitoring

MVP Anti-Patterns — DON'T DO THIS

1. Integration test suites — Happy-path unit tests are enough at MVP
2. Multi-environment deploys — One environment. Dev IS production
3. Performance optimization — Make it work, make it right, THEN make it fast. You're at step 2
4. Horizontal scaling — Vertical scale (bigger server) until proven insufficient
5. Comprehensive logging — Log errors and key events. Not every function call

Production Anti-Patterns — DON'T DO THIS

1. Skipping tests to "move faster" — You'll move slower when bugs hit production
2. Manual deployments — CI/CD exists for a reason. Set it up
3. No error tracking — If you can't see errors, you can't fix them
4. Ignoring security — Production code faces the internet. Act like it

Inputs

• Project name and context
• Current tier (from user, STATE.md, or project CLAUDE.md)
• Proposed work scope

Outputs

• Tier assignment with constraint summary
• Violation flags when scope exceeds tier
• Anti-pattern warnings

Level History

• Lv.1 — Base: 3-tier governance system with phase constraints, anti-patterns list, and scope violation flagging. Inspired by Intellegix portfolio governance. (Origin: MemStack v3.2, Feb 2026)