Karpathy Guardrails

Four rules. Load them into context at the start of every task. The reviewer enforces them as a Pass-1 filter before it looks at code quality.

1. Think Before Coding

Before the first edit, write down:

• What am I actually building? One sentence. If you cannot state it, stop.
• What am I assuming? List every assumption. If any is load-bearing and unverified, flag NEEDS_CONTEXT and ask — do not guess.
• What does success look like? Map each acceptance criterion to a concrete test, check, or observable behaviour. If a criterion is not verifiable, propose a sharpening via the revision skill (automated-trace subsection), not a vague attempt.

Refusing to produce code is allowed. A task with unknown scope is a spec bug, not a coding task.