Best Practices

Best Practices Skill

Search and apply established best practices before implementation.

When to Use

• Starting new implementation work
• Checking for established patterns
• Promoting successful memory patterns
• Ensuring consistency with team standards

Best Practices Location

Best practices are stored in best-practices/<category>/:

• best-practices/architecture/
• best-practices/development/
• best-practices/git/
• best-practices/operations/
• best-practices/quality/
• best-practices/security/
• best-practices/collaboration/

Search Before Implementation

MANDATORY: Check best-practices AND memory before starting work:

1. Identify the domain/category of work
2. Search best-practices directory:

   find best-practices/<category>/ -name "*.md"
   

3. Search memory for related patterns:

   # Portable: resolve memory CLI location (prefers ICA_HOME when set)
   MEMORY_CLI=""
   for d in "${ICA_HOME:-}" "$HOME/.codex" "$HOME/.claude"; do
     if [ -n "$d" ] && [ -f "$d/skills/memory/cli.js" ]; then
       MEMORY_CLI="$d/skills/memory/cli.js"
       break
     fi
   done
   
   if [ -n "$MEMORY_CLI" ]; then
     node "$MEMORY_CLI" search "<relevant keywords>"
   elif [ -d "memory/exports" ]; then
     # Fallback: search shareable markdown exports (git-trackable)
     if command -v rg >/dev/null 2>&1; then
       rg -n "<relevant keywords>" memory/exports
     else
       grep -R "<relevant keywords>" memory/exports
     fi
   fi
   

4. Apply established patterns to implementation
5. Note deviations with justification

Best Practice Format

# [Practice Name]

## When to Use
[Situations where this practice applies]

## Pattern
[The recommended approach]

## Example
[Concrete implementation example]

## Rationale
[Why this approach is preferred]

## Anti-patterns
[What to avoid]

Promotion from Memory

When a memory pattern proves successful:

1. Threshold: Used 3+ times successfully
2. Validation: Pattern is generalizable
3. Documentation: Full best-practice format
4. Location: Move to appropriate category
5. References: Update memory to link to best-practice

Integration with AgentTasks

When creating AgentTasks, reference applicable best practices:

context:
  best_practices:
    - category: security
      practice: input-validation
    - category: git
      practice: commit-messages

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