extend-before-create
Installation
SKILL.md
Extend Before Create
North Star. Reader Gate (rules/CORE.md Iron Law) establishes the principle: "Reuse before reinvention. Search first. If a function, type, hook, component, or skill does the job — even imperfectly — extend, import, or compose it."
This skill is the stack-specific playbook: where to search, how to decide, when to defer.
Effort Gates
Adaptive depth based on ${CLAUDE_EFFORT} (v2.1.120+):
| Effort | Decision Trees To Walk |
|---|---|
low |
Primary decision tree only for the relevant domain (e.g. "is there an existing tRPC procedure that handles this?"). Skip the cross-domain trees and the conciseness audit. |
medium and above |
Full protocol — walk all relevant domain trees + atomic UI ladder + doc reuse + conciseness audit. |
Threshold rationale: low effort signals targeted single-domain lookup; full protocol is overkill. Medium and above is the safe default for any non-trivial change.