Assembly Programming

Operating Rules

• Identify architecture, bitness, syntax, ABI, OS, compiler, and optimization level before interpreting code.
• Track register meaning, stack layout, flags, memory aliases, and call clobbers explicitly.
• Prefer correctness and ABI compliance before micro-optimization.
• For security-sensitive code, call out memory safety, control-flow integrity, and undefined behavior risks.

Workflow

1. Establish target platform and syntax: Intel vs AT&T, GNU as vs NASM/MASM, ARM vs AArch64, etc.
2. Map inputs, outputs, preserved registers, stack alignment, and external calls.
3. Translate blocks into pseudocode before proposing edits.
4. For edits, preserve calling convention, unwind expectations, and toolchain constraints.
5. Recommend verification with assembler, unit tests, debugger traces, or compiler-generated comparison.

Review Checklist