North Star

North-Star

Plate's constitutional doctrine for reusable architecture and public API design.

Use this skill before shaping a reusable Plate surface. This is the upstream decision layer. It owns architecture law, public API shape, layering, performance/scalability selection, and anti-patterns.

Use plate-plugin-creator after the public pattern is already chosen and the work has become plugin-authoring execution.

Use When

• Introducing or changing a reusable public API
• Designing builder/factory patterns
• Designing plugin/extension registration patterns
• Designing runtime/service boundaries
• Designing caches, projections, protocol layers, or service seams
• Choosing between competing ergonomic vs performance shapes
• Renaming or re-layering a reusable API family
• The right owner or architectural layer is ambiguous

Do Not Use When

• The work is app-local convenience only
• The work is a one-off migration helper with no durable public pattern
• The public pattern is already settled and you are just implementing plugin mechanics
• The question is only about public docs wording
• The work is git/process workflow, not reusable API design

Hard Routing Rule

• If the work touches a reusable public/editor-platform API, use north-star first.
• If the work touches runtime/service-boundary architecture, use north-star first.
• If the work is ambiguous between reusable API design and implementation, route upward to north-star first.
• If the work is app-local convenience only, do not use north-star.
• If the public pattern is already settled and the task is plugin execution, hand off to plate-plugin-creator.

Routing Matrix

Who Owns What

Constitutional Layer

• laws.md
• decision-ladder.md
• performance-selection-rules.md
• update-policy.md

Pattern Layer

• pattern-catalog.md
• anti-patterns.md

Best Mix

• ProseMirror/Tiptap: extension ownership and productized ergonomics
• Portable Text: spec discipline, schema applicability, behavior authoring, and behavior-test standards
• Lexical: runtime contracts and perf posture
• Premirror/Pretext: layout and measurement as first-class architecture
• urql/TanStack DB/LSP: pipeline, state, and service-boundary patterns
• kitcn plus lighter editors: scoped builders where earned, restraint where not

The concrete pattern guidance lives in pattern-catalog.md.

Matcher Extraction Heuristic

When scanning a reusable API family, aggressively inspect repeated resolve() and apply() bodies before inventing more package-level wrappers.

Default posture:

• if multiple packages repeat the same matching prelude, that is pressure for a core primitive
• if multiple packages repeat the same feature action, that usually still belongs in the owning package

Pull into core when the repeated logic is mostly:

• trigger gating
• collapsed-selection gating
• block-start / text-before / adjacent-char lookup
• delimiter / prefix / regex matching
• range or payload construction
• other editor-state inspection that is feature-agnostic

Keep local when the repeated logic is mostly:

• node creation
• mark toggling
• list transforms
• link validation or insertion
• equation insertion
• code-block insertion
• any semantic transform owned by a feature package

The goal is:

• core owns matcher primitives and shared input-state access
• feature packages own semantic apply behavior

Do not flatten package semantics into core just because the files look similar. Do not miss a real core primitive because the action code is loud.

Workflow

1. Run the decision ladder.
2. Decide the owner and layer first.
3. Check the pattern catalog for the preferred family.
4. Scan repeated resolve() / apply() shapes and separate matcher logic from feature semantics before blessing a new public helper.
5. Run the performance selection protocol before blessing the prettier API.
6. Check the anti-patterns.
7. If the work introduces or materially changes a reusable public pattern, follow the update policy.
8. Once the pattern is chosen, hand off implementation mechanics to plate-plugin-creator or another more specific execution skill.

Reaffirmation Contract

Every lane that introduces or materially changes a reusable public API, runtime boundary, builder/factory pattern, or extension contract must include one of:

• north-star updated
• north-star reaffirmed: <section-name>

Reaffirmation is not implicit. It must name the governing section so the claim is reviewable.

Examples:

• north-star reaffirmed: laws
• north-star reaffirmed: decision-ladder
• north-star reaffirmed: performance-selection-rules

Binary Review Checklist

1. Is the owner named?
2. Is the layer named?
3. Is reusable vs local decided?
4. Is the governing north-star section named?
5. Was the performance protocol applied when hot-path relevant?

Relationship To Other Skills

• plate-plugin-creator
  • plugin-authoring execution companion
• docs-creator
  • public docs companion
• react
  • React implementation companion

Final Law

If a reusable API or runtime boundary matters to future Plate work, north-star decides the pattern. Local convenience, plugin mechanics, and documentation follow from that. Not the other way around.