# Golden Principles

> **ANALYSIS SKILL** — The agent-first operating principles governing how agents work in this repository. WHEN: "golden principles", "agent behavior rules", "operating philosophy", "principle lookup", "governance invariants". USE FOR: agent behavior rules, operating philosophy, principle lookup, governance invariants. DO NOT USE FOR: Azure infrastructure, code generation, troubleshooting, diagram creation.

- Skill: `jonathan-vella/golden-principles` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jonathan-vella/golden-principles`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jonathan-vella/golden-principles/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: DevOps & Infra
- Author: jonathan-vella (https://skillmd.com/u/jonathan-vella)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jonathan-vella/golden-principles

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# Golden Principles

These 10 principles govern how every agent operates in this repository.
They are adapted from the Harness Engineering philosophy for agent-driven
infrastructure development.

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## Rules

These 10 principles are the agent operating rules. Detailed explanations follow in [The 10 Principles](#the-10-principles).

1. **Repository Is the System of Record** — all context lives in-repo
2. **Map, Not Manual** — instructions point to deeper sources
3. **Enforce Invariants, Not Implementations** — set boundaries, allow autonomous expression
4. **Parse at Boundaries** — validate inputs and outputs at module edges
5. **AVM-First, Security Baseline Always** — prefer Azure Verified Modules + non-negotiable security baseline
6. **Golden Path Pattern** — prefer shared utilities over hand-rolled helpers
7. **Composable Workflows** — small, well-bounded steps that compose
8. **Human Approval at Critical Gates** — explicit gates between steps
9. **Adversarial Review** — challenger subagents stress-test creative outputs
10. **Continuous Lessons** — capture observations and feed back into the system

## Steps

Applying the principles to a new agent or skill:

1. **Read all 10 principles** before designing the agent or skill
2. **For each design decision**, ask which principles apply (typically 2–3 will dominate)
3. **Run the per-principle test** listed in [The 10 Principles](#the-10-principles)
4. **Where a principle conflicts with an implementation choice**, change the implementation — principles are non-negotiable
5. **Document deviations** in an ADR if a principle was knowingly relaxed

## The 10 Principles

Each principle has a non-negotiable rule and a quick test for compliance. The
canonical detail (full text + per-principle tests + the "How to Apply These
Principles" section for agents, contributors, and code review) lives in
[`references/principles.md`](references/principles.md). The summary list above
is a one-line index; for any decision-making use, load the reference. The
two sources are kept in sync — if you spot drift, update the reference and
sync the summary.

## Reference Index

| Reference                                              | When to Load                                                                                                    |
| ------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [`references/principles.md`](references/principles.md) | Applying a principle to a specific design or implementation decision; running the per-principle compliance test |