Skill: programming-practices-core

Activation Contract

Use this skill when asked to review, explain, or improve general programming practices across languages: readability, maintainability, duplication, cohesion, coupling, naming, simplicity, and safe evolution.

Do not use this skill when the request is only formatting, framework setup, performance tuning, security auditing, testing, or language-specific API usage with no broader design-quality question.

Responsibility

This skill teaches a bounded code-quality review workflow. It does not choose tools, call other skills, rewrite whole systems, or replace domain requirements supplied by the user.

Required Context

• Target language and code snippet/files, if available.
• Intended behavior and current pain point.
• Constraints: legacy-code safety, public API compatibility, deadline, or team conventions.
• Whether the user wants diagnosis only or an improvement plan.