Clean Code Standard

This skill is the authoritative clean code standard for this repository's shared skills. It defines stable rule IDs (CC-*), how to apply them in reviews, and how to extend them safely via language overlays and explicit exceptions.

Modern Best Practices: Prefer small, reviewable changes and durable change context. Use BCP 14 normative language consistently (RFC 2119 + RFC 8174). Treat security-by-design and secure defaults as baseline (OWASP Top Ten 2025, NIST SSDF). Prefer GitHub rulesets over branch-protection-only governance. Build observable systems with OpenTelemetry. For current tool choices, consult data/sources.json and prefer official docs first.

Judgment over dogma: This standard's CC-* rules are durable (coupling/cohesion, naming, small interfaces, explicit errors). Numeric folklore — hard function-length caps, "comments are a smell," DRY applied absolutely — is not. Robert C. Martin's Clean Code (2nd ed., 2025) and John Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design disagree in a published, public debate on function size and commenting (see references/code-quality-operational-playbook.md § 14); apply the rule ID's intent, not a book's specific numeric prescription, and know when not to refactor (§ 14.3 of the same reference).

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