Separate Discovery From Editing
separate-discovery-from-editing
Summary
Editing while still discovering the system can bake early misunderstandings into the diff. Read enough to find the ownership, constraints, and likely change shape before making scoped edits.
Problem
Exploration can turn into edits before the contributor understands the local shape. The first plausible fix then reflects a guess, not the repository's actual contracts, conventions, and failure modes.
Preferred Move
Inspect the relevant files, instructions, tests, and current working-copy state before changing tracked files. Start editing only after the target chunk and likely verification path are clear.
Tradeoff
Tiny mechanical edits may not need a long discovery pass. Keep exploration proportional to risk, but do enough reading to avoid inventing structure from one isolated example.
Agent Instruction
Do a targeted read-only pass before editing. Summarize what context controls the change, then patch
only the confirmed scope.Examples
Bad: the first plausible file shape becomes the implementation.
Created a new helpers module before reading the existing module layout.
Good: exploration identifies the local owner before editing.
Read AGENTS.md, nearby modules, and tests; patched the existing workspace path helper.