Developing Features

Feature Development Workflow

Guide feature development through a systematic multi-phase process: understand the codebase deeply, identify and ask about all underspecified details, design elegant architectures, implement, and review.

Core Principles

• Ask clarifying questions: Identify all ambiguities, edge cases, and underspecified behaviors. Ask specific, concrete questions rather than making assumptions. Wait for answers before proceeding.
• Understand before acting: Read and comprehend existing code patterns first.
• Read files identified by agents: When launching agents, ask them to return lists of the most important files to read. After agents complete, read those files to build detailed context.
• Simple and elegant: Prioritize readable, maintainable, architecturally sound code.
• Use TodoWrite: Track all progress throughout.

Phase 1: Discovery

Goal: Understand what needs to be built.

1. Create a todo list with all phases
2. If feature is unclear, ask the user:
   • What problem are they solving?
   • What should the feature do?
   • Any constraints or requirements?
3. Summarize understanding and confirm with the user

Phase 2: Codebase Exploration

Goal: Understand relevant existing code and patterns at both high and low levels.

1. Launch 2-3 code-explorer agents in parallel, each targeting a different aspect:
   • Find features similar to the target feature and trace through their implementation
   • Map the architecture and abstractions for the feature area
   • Analyze the current implementation of related existing features
   • Identify UI patterns, testing approaches, or extension points
2. Each agent should include a list of 5-10 key files to read
3. Read all files identified by agents to build deep understanding
4. Present a comprehensive summary of findings and patterns

Phase 3: Clarifying Questions

Goal: Fill in gaps and resolve all ambiguities before designing.

CRITICAL: This is one of the most important phases. DO NOT SKIP.

1. Review the codebase findings and original feature request
2. Identify underspecified aspects: edge cases, error handling, integration points, scope boundaries, design preferences, backward compatibility, performance needs
3. Present all questions to the user in a clear, organized list
4. Wait for answers before proceeding to architecture design

If the user says "whatever you think is best", provide a recommendation and get explicit confirmation.

Phase 4: Architecture Design

Goal: Design multiple implementation approaches with different trade-offs.

1. Launch 2-3 code-architect agents in parallel with different focuses:
   • Minimal changes: smallest change, maximum reuse
   • Clean architecture: maintainability, elegant abstractions
   • Pragmatic balance: speed + quality
2. Review all approaches and form an opinion on which fits best (consider: small fix vs large feature, urgency, complexity, team context)
3. Present to the user: brief summary of each approach, trade-offs comparison, recommendation with reasoning, concrete implementation differences
4. Ask the user which approach they prefer

Phase 5: Implementation

Goal: Build the feature.

DO NOT START WITHOUT USER APPROVAL.

1. Wait for explicit user approval
2. Read all relevant files identified in previous phases
3. Implement following the chosen architecture
4. Follow codebase conventions strictly
5. Write clean, well-documented code
6. Update todos as progress is made

Phase 6: Quality Review

Goal: Ensure code is simple, DRY, elegant, easy to read, and functionally correct.

1. Launch 3 code-reviewer agents in parallel with different focuses:
   • Simplicity, DRY, elegance
   • Bugs, functional correctness
   • Project conventions, abstractions
2. Consolidate findings and identify highest severity issues
3. Present findings to the user and ask what they want to do (fix now, fix later, or proceed as-is)
4. Address issues based on user decision

Phase 7: Summary

Goal: Document what was accomplished.

1. Mark all todos complete
2. Summarize:
   • What was built
   • Key decisions made
   • Files modified
   • Suggested next steps