anntnzrb Pstack Principles
Twenty-one engineering principles from pstack (Lauren Tan, MIT). One bundled skill, not twenty-one, to protect the skill-inventory metadata budget.
Rules of use:
- Match the task to rows whose When column fits. Read the referenced file in full before applying. Applying from the index line alone is not allowed.
- When you report, name each principle that shaped a decision and the specific choice it changed. A citation with no decision behind it means you skipped the leaf file.
- If principles conflict, the smaller change wins unless a verification principle says otherwise.
- Ported from https://github.com/cursor/plugins/tree/main/pstack (MIT). Cross-references point to local files.
Required follow-up reads
| Need | Read | When |
|---|---|---|
| Laziness Protocol rule | references/principle-laziness-protocol.md | Refactoring, sizing a diff, or tempted to add abstractions, layers, or signal threading |
| Foundational Thinking rule | references/principle-foundational-thinking.md | Before writing logic: core types and data structures, scaffold-vs-feature sequencing, what concurrent actors share |
| Redesign from First Principles rule | references/principle-redesign-from-first-principles.md | Integrating a new requirement into an existing design |
| Subtract Before You Add rule | references/principle-subtract-before-you-add.md | Sequencing an addition, refactor, or rewrite |
| Minimize Reader Load rule | references/principle-minimize-reader-load.md | Reviewing or shaping code that is hard to trace |
| Outcome-Oriented Execution rule | references/principle-outcome-oriented-execution.md | Planned rewrites and migrations with explicit phase boundaries |
| Experience First rule | references/principle-experience-first.md | Product, UX, or feature-scope tradeoffs |
| Exhaust the Design Space rule | references/principle-exhaust-the-design-space.md | A novel interaction or architectural decision with no precedent |
| Build the Lever rule | references/principle-build-the-lever.md | Any non-trivial work: edits, migrations, analyses, checks |
| Model the Domain rule | references/principle-model-the-domain.md | Writing stateful logic, or code that branches a lot or repeats a shape assumption across files |
| Boundary Discipline rule | references/principle-boundary-discipline.md | Wiring validation, error handling, or framework adapters |
| Type System Discipline rule | references/principle-type-system-discipline.md | Designing types or a signature in any typed language |
| Make Operations Idempotent rule | references/principle-make-operations-idempotent.md | Designing commands, lifecycle steps, or loops that run amid crashes and retries |
| Migrate Callers Then Delete Legacy APIs rule | references/principle-migrate-callers-then-delete-legacy-apis.md | Introducing a new internal API while old callers exist |
| Separate Before Serializing Shared State rule | references/principle-separate-before-serializing-shared-state.md | Concurrent actors might write the same file, branch, key, or object |
| Prove It Works rule | references/principle-prove-it-works.md | After a task, before declaring done |
| Fix Root Causes rule | references/principle-fix-root-causes.md | Debugging: trace each symptom to its root cause |
| Sequence Work into Verifiable Units rule | references/principle-sequence-verifiable-units.md | Multi-step work and how you stack commits and PRs |
| Guard the Context Window rule | references/principle-guard-the-context-window.md | Context fills up: large outputs, long files, repeated reads, fan-out planning |
| Never Block on the Human rule | references/principle-never-block-on-the-human.md | Tempted to ask "should I do X?" on reversible work |
| Encode Lessons in Structure rule | references/principle-encode-lessons-in-structure.md | You catch yourself writing the same instruction a second time |