murillodutt/cellm/skills/engineering

Engineering Axioms — Before Code

Four non-negotiable principles for every line of code:

| Axiom | Meaning | Anti-Pattern | |-------|---------|-------------| | ONE VERSION | No v1/v2 coexistence. Migrate all, remove old. | if (version === 1), compatibility layers, convertOldToNew() | | RESOLVE > SILENCE | Fix the cause, never suppress. | @ts-ignore, eslint-disable, silent catch, optimizeDeps.exclude | | LAZY > EAGER | Load on-demand by default. | Eager imports of heavy deps, non-lazy components, blocking initialization | | NOW > LATER | Can be done now? Do it now. | TODO comments for trivial fixes, deferred cleanup |

Pre-Write Discipline

Bias: caution over speed. Trivial edits use judgment. For non-trivial work, pass these checks before the first edit:

| Guard | Required Before Editing | Blocks | |-------|-------------------------|--------| | THINK BEFORE CODING | Name assumptions, ambiguity, simplest safe interpretation. Push back when a simpler path exists. Stop and ask when confused. | Silent assumptions, confident wrong paths, hidden confusion | | SIMPLICITY FIRST | Add complexity only when needed now, with a real second consumer or explicit contract. If 200 LOC could be 50, rewrite. Senior-engineer test: would they call it overcomplicated? | Premature abstractions, speculative options, framework-shaped code for one case | | SURGICAL CHANGES | Every touched line traces to the request or to an orphan this change created. Match existing style. Mention unrelated dead code, do not delete it. | Drive-by refactors, style drift, adjacent rewrites, unrequested cleanup | | GOAL-DRIVEN EXECUTION | Define the falsifiable finish line before building. Bugs get reproduction; features get expected behavior; refactors get before/after green. State a step → verify plan for multi-step work. | "Make it work" loops, weak success criteria, closure without evidence |

Plan template for multi-step tasks:

1. [Step] -> verify: [check]
2. [Step] -> verify: [check]
3. [Step] -> verify: [check]

If a task is trivial, satisfy the guards silently and proceed. If the work is ambiguous, risky, broad, or architectural, state the guard outcome before editing.

NEVER

• Suppress warnings — every warning is a real problem to fix
• Maintain compatibility layers — migrate completely, then delete
• Eagerly load what can be lazy — defineAsyncComponent, dynamic imports, .client.vue
• Defer what takes less effort now than later
• Add abstraction before timing proves it — correct shape too early is still wrong
• Touch neighboring code as a side quest — record it as follow-up unless it blocks the goal

Pre-Write Discipline adapted from Tilly's behavioral guidelines (MIT, github.com/forrestchang/tilly-engineer-skills).