About This Reference

This site is a task router for durable software-development preferences. The sections are separated so a reader can find the right kind of help without turning every page into a manual, rule pack, design essay, and command list at once.

Core distinction

The difference between sections is the reader task. A reviewer often needs a short rule or pattern to cite. A maintainer deciding whether that rule belongs needs a principle. A contributor entering a broad topic needs a guide. A coding agent needs a compact snippet. A repo needs mechanisms that make the preferred behavior cheaper to follow.

The kinds are useful only when they reduce search and review cost. If the taxonomy makes a reader work harder, the guidance should be merged, renamed, or moved.

Reference sections

Each section answers a different question. Use the question to decide where to look, or where a new idea should live.

Guides

Work-area orientation

Guides map broad work areas and route readers to the rules, patterns, principles, mechanisms, and references that matter for that kind of work.

Rules

Compact instruction

Rules are compact, reviewable instructions. They carry enough rationale and limits to apply safely, and they can be compressed into agent-facing rule packs.

Patterns

Repeated situation and preferred move

Patterns name repeated situations and preferred moves. They are useful as review vocabulary when the same shape appears in more than one domain.

Principles

Rationale, tradeoffs, and limits

Principles explain the tradeoffs behind related rules and patterns. They help maintainers decide whether a rule belongs and when it should bend.

Mechanisms

Checks, commands, generators, and workflows

Mechanisms make guidance operational through checks, generators, commands, configuration, and workflows. They reduce repeated drift without replacing judgment.

Agents

Copyable repository instructions

Agent snippets are compact execution surfaces for downstream repositories. They point to deeper guidance instead of carrying every argument inline.

References

External sources and planning records

References collect durable external sources. They support local judgment, but they do not replace this repo's own guidance or voice.

Authorship And AI

This reference is written with regular use of AI tools for exploration, coding, summarization, drafting, and revision. Some text may be substantially AI-written, but the published pages are artifacts I choose to own, curate, and endorse.

The local standard is Own AI-Assisted Prose: AI provenance can matter, and attribution belongs where it helps readers judge trust or responsibility, but the main boundary for this site is whether I have done the work to make the artifact mine. Other people and projects can reasonably draw different lines.

How Ideas Move

Guidance can move between kinds as it becomes clearer. A reusable instruction hidden in a guide can become a rule. Repeated rule rationale can become a principle. A repeated review move can become a pattern. A recurring manual correction can become a mechanism.

Movement should make the site easier to use. If a proposed artifact mostly renames existing guidance, creates a vague umbrella, or forces readers to understand the taxonomy before they can act, it should be rejected or folded into an existing page.