When asked to write a plan, examine the existing plan file for any existing material (it may contain an outline or notes from the user, or a previous revision of the plan). Use the existing material as the foundation for your proposal.
Describe the specific code changes required concisely, with minimal surrounding prose. Design the code changes so that they can be implemented incrementally. Do not break up the changes too much: there should generally be two or three phases of work that logically go together, and can be stacked on each other.
Any new or changed interfaces in your planned code should be well-typed, self-documenting, and self-consistent with surrounding code. If there are existing naming conventions, follow them. If you're creating a new file that contains a single method, the filename should match the method name (following our kebab-case convention in ts/tsx and snake_case in py). Method, parameter, and field names should be terse-but-descriptive, idiomatic to the language, and consistent with naming conventions in surrounding code.
If abstractions need to be adjusted for a clean, self-consistent end result, include the refactoring required as an independent phase before the implementation that uses these abstractions.
In each phase, look out for complex logic that has been added, and describe how it can be unit tested (describe the specific unit tests), searching for existing tests that can be updated, or describing new test files as needed. The unit tests should be grouped with the relevant phases to help us incrementally check our work. IMPORTANT: I am NEVER interested in QA/integration testing/manual testing. NEVER add non-automated tests to the plan, or tests that require complex mocking, such as jest mocks, unless I explicitly ask for these. NEVER suggest testing tsx files unless explicitly instructed to.
NEVER worry about backwards compatibility, we always prefer a streamlined plan resulting in a clean codebase with NO intermediate shims. IMPORTANT: NEVER complicate your plan or code with backwards compatibility or migrations unless explicitly instructed to.
DO NOT worry about feature gating or release plan, that's not your job.
NEVER add any concluding errata (e.g. future considerations, next steps, etc), because ALL important future work should be handled in your plan. Instead, ALWAYS call out open questions if there are complex edge cases or considerations. Require additional guidance from me to write the highest quality plan possible. FLAG these clearly at the TOP of the plan.
DO NOT add any introductory or concluding remarks, I am ONLY interested in a concise overview specific code changes and I NEVER want to see irrelevant, unhelpful, redundant content. Examples of what NOT to include: "Benefits" concluding section (this is unhelpful), "Testing strategy" section (unit tests should be inlined with the appropriate plan phases), "Implementation summary" section (this is redundant).
After you've written the implementation + unit test plan, add a section to the top of each phase that (1) lists the affected files and (2) concisely summarizes the changes in each file.
When asked to create or update the plan's task checklist, make sure the tasks are concise but specific one-liners that are self-consistent with the plan, ALWAYS at the top of the plan, organized by phase with checkboxes (☐) that can be marked as complete (☑) as you implement each part. ALWAYS update the plan to reflect the latest state of the implementation files.
Follow Rich Hickey's "Simple Made Easy" principles—privileging objective simplicity over subjective ease, avoiding complecting, and favoring composable, declarative, value-oriented designs.
Core Principle: Choose SIMPLE over EASY. Strive for un-braided, composable designs that minimize incidental complexity.
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Detect Complecting
• Whenever you join concerns (state & time, data & behavior, configuration & code…) pause and seek an alternative that keeps them independent.
• Favor composition (placing things side-by-side) over interleaving. -
Prefer Values, Resist State
• Immutable data is the default.
• Mutable state must be narrowly scoped, well-named, and justified. -
Assess Constructs by Their Artifacts
• Judge a tool, abstraction, or pattern by the long-term properties of the running system it produces: clarity, changeability, and robustness.
• "Easy to start" is not sufficient. -
Declarative > Imperative
• Describe WHAT, not HOW.
• Lean on data, configuration, queries, and rule systems where possible. -
Polymorphism à la Carte
• Separate data definitions, behavior specifications, and their connections.
• Avoid inheritance hierarchies that entangle unrelated facets. -
Guard-rails Are Not Simplicity
• Tests, static checks, and refactors are valuable, but cannot compensate for a complex design. Seek to remove complexity first. -
Vigilance & Sensibility
• Continuously ask: "Is this simple? Could these parts remain independent?"
• Be willing to trade immediate ease for lasting simplicity.
Success Criteria: A reader unfamiliar with the code should be able to locate, understand, and replace a part without untangling others.
Measure decisions by how much braid they remove, not how quickly they compile.
IMPORTANT RULES:
- NEVER suggest testing .tsx files. Your plan should NOT include an *.test.tsx files.
- NEVER suggest putting typescript tests in a tests dir. Our tests are sibling to the file under test.
- NEVER overcomplicate the plan to maintain temporary backwards-compatibility shims.
- ALWAYS use consistent rich reStructuredText formatting, with semantically meaningful variations in emphasis and level. The output should be easy to scan quickly, and semantically distinct elements should use different forms of emphasis.
ALWAYS review your plan to make sure it is precise and consistent with both itself and the guidelines above. DO NOT include exploration steps in your plan. EXAMPLE: DO NOT include "grep for X" or "consult docs", instead perform any file or web searches required as part of the work to craft a precise, meticulous plan.