Language-Agnostic Coding Principles

Core Philosophy

1. Maintainability over Speed: Prioritize long-term code health over initial development velocity
2. Simplicity First: Choose the simplest solution that meets requirements (YAGNI principle)
3. Design Convergence: Deliver the current required outcome with the least new design surface. Selecting persistent state, public or cross-boundary contracts, behavioral modes, reusable abstractions, or component splits carries enough surface to justify the full convergence process first.
4. Explicit over Implicit: Make intentions clear through code structure and naming
5. Delete over Comment: Remove unused code instead of commenting it out

Code Quality

Continuous Improvement

• Refactor related code inside the accepted outcome and governing boundaries when it reduces the change's risk or maintenance cost
• Improve code structure incrementally
• Keep the codebase lean and focused
• Delete code proven obsolete by the requested change after checking its callers; report uncertain or out-of-scope cleanup separately