Frontend change recon

Most bad frontend work is decided before the first line is written. You build a component that already exists, you miss the error state, or you implement a flow you never traced end to end. Recon is the fix.

Do not write code until you have finished this skill.

1. Read the whole ticket

The whole thing, including comments, linked designs, and linked issues. Ticket bodies routinely contradict their own titles, and the constraint that breaks your approach is usually in a comment.

Write down, for yourself:

• What the user is trying to accomplish, in one sentence.
• Where the flow starts and where it ends.
• What is explicitly out of scope.