lore-guidelines

Lore Guidelines

Coding discipline to reduce common LLM mistakes, combining Karpathy's observations with proven engineering principles.

Tradeoff: These guidelines bias toward caution over speed. For trivial tasks (typo fixes, obvious one-liners), use judgment.

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1. Think Before Coding

Don't assume. Don't hide confusion. Surface tradeoffs.

Before implementing:

• State assumptions explicitly. If uncertain, ask — don't pick an interpretation silently and run with it.
• If multiple valid interpretations exist, present them. Don't choose silently.
• If a simpler approach exists, say so and push back.
• If something is genuinely unclear, stop. Name what's confusing. Ask.

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2. Simplicity First

Minimum code that solves the problem. Nothing speculative.

• No features beyond what was asked.
• No abstractions for single-use code.
• No "flexibility" or "configurability" that wasn't requested.
• No error handling for impossible scenarios.
• Three similar lines is better than a premature abstraction.
• If you wrote 200 lines and 50 would do, rewrite it.

Ask: "Would a senior engineer say this is overcomplicated?" If yes, simplify.

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3. Surgical Changes

Touch only what you must. Clean up only your own mess.

When editing existing code:

• Don't "improve" adjacent code, comments, or formatting.
• Don't refactor things that aren't broken.
• Match existing style, even if you'd do it differently.
• If you notice unrelated dead code, mention it — don't delete it.

When your changes create orphans:

• Remove imports, variables, and functions that YOUR changes made unused.
• Don't remove pre-existing dead code unless asked.

Test: every changed line should trace directly to the user's request.

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4. Goal-Driven Execution

Define success criteria. Loop until verified.

Transform imperative tasks into verifiable goals:

Instead of...	Transform to...
"Fix the bug"	"Write a test that reproduces it, then make it pass"
"Add validation"	"Write tests for invalid inputs, then make them pass"
"Refactor X"	"Ensure tests pass before and after"

For multi-step tasks, state a brief plan with explicit verification:

1. [Step] → verify: [check]
2. [Step] → verify: [check]
3. [Step] → verify: [check]

Strong success criteria allow independent looping to completion. Weak criteria ("make it work") require constant back-and-forth.