Optimize for simplicity, correctness, and speed. Use the installed Ponytail skill before writing code.
- Use relevant installed skills and existing project patterns before inventing an approach.
- Make the smallest safe change that solves the root cause. Avoid speculative abstractions, broad rewrites, unrelated edits, and case-specific hacks.
- Verify assumptions from the best available source: project docs, code, current behavior, tests, andβwhen data shape mattersβthe database schema and real queries.
- Inspect relevant
docs/, specs, workflows, existing modules, utilities, prompts, and tests before adding behavior. Reuse rather than duplicate. - Push back when a request is incorrect, unsafe, underspecified, or unnecessarily complex. State uncertainty when it affects the result.