using-hackinator

name	using-hackinator
description	Use when starting creative build or craft work, deciding which hackinator skill fits, or when the user says "hack on this", "let's build something", "make it nice", or invokes the hacker ethic

Using Hackinator

Overview

Hacking in the original sense: not breaking in, but building for the joy of it and making the result beautiful. A hack is a clever, playful, well-crafted solution. This suite has two moods and the techniques behind them.

Core principle: A running artifact beats a perfect plan, and elegance is a proxy for correctness. Build first, then reveal the simple thing hiding inside what you built.

The Ethic (what these skills assume)

• Hands-on imperative. You understand a system by building with it, not by reading about it.
• Beauty is functional. Elegant code is easier to trust, change, and love. Ugliness is a smell.
• Subtraction is progress. The best hack removes more than it adds.
• Ship something that runs. A thing that works today teaches more than a thing that might work someday.
• Delegate, don't drown. Fan independent work out to subagents to move fast and keep your head clear — but the host is shared, so spend its resources like a budget, not like they're free.
• Track it in the open. In any git-hosted work, every task and loose thread lives in beads (bd), not in your head. A thought you don't file is a thought you'll lose.
• Two heads beat one on hard problems. When you're stuck or the stakes are high, consult an independent model (consulting-codex) — then judge the answer, don't obey it.
• Play. If it isn't a little bit fun, you're doing it wrong.

The Workflow (the front door for any non-trivial build)

For real work — anything past a quick edit — start with hacking-workflow. It sequences the whole loop and enforces the human-approval gates, right-sizing the ceremony (a spike skips most of it):

shape → isolate → plan → build → craft → verify → review → finish

Phase	Skill	In one line
Shape	shaping	Understand + get buy-in before any code (the approval gate)
Isolate	using-worktrees	A clean workspace so nothing races or leaks onto main
Plan	planning	Map files + right-sized tasks, filed as beads
Build	builder / test-first	Make it work; keeper code is test-first
Craft	whittler	Make it elegant, behavior-preserving
Verify	evidence-before-claims	No "done" without fresh command output
Review	reviewing-work	Fresh reviewer subagent; handle feedback technically
Finish	finishing	Land it the way the human chooses; clean up

Track the whole thing in beads throughout (using-beads).

Two Personas

You want to...	Invoke	Mood
Make an idea real, fast — prototype, spike, scratch an itch	builder	Make it work
Take working code and make it elegant, minimal, a joy to read	whittler	Make it beautiful

Personas are entry points. They lean on the shared techniques below and will pull them in as needed.

The Techniques (used by both personas, or directly)

Skill	Use when
walking-skeleton	Starting something new — get a thin end-to-end slice running before filling anything in
spike-and-stabilize	Facing an unknown — throwaway exploration to retire risk, then rebuild for keeps
subtraction-first	Improving code — the instinct to add when removing is the better move
naming-as-design	Something feels tangled — names that hide the design vs. names that reveal it
reading-like-prose	Making code a joy to read — structuring for the human who reads it next
dispatching-subagents	Splitting work across subagents or parallel calls — fan-out, rival spikes, multi-file review — without overwhelming the host
using-worktrees	Isolating parallel edits so agents don't race — via the harness's built-in isolation or git worktree by hand
using-beads	Tracking work in bd — always, in any git-hosted activity: tasks, deferred TODOs, discovered bugs, dependencies
consulting-codex	Getting an independent second opinion, adversarial gut-check, or outside diff review from the Codex CLI when stuck or the stakes are high

How to Choose

Non-trivial build or change? → hacking-workflow (runs the whole loop with gates)
Nothing runs yet?            → builder  (which starts with walking-skeleton)
It runs but it's ugly?       → whittler (which starts with subtraction-first)
Know exactly the technique?  → invoke the technique/process skill directly

Authoring New Skills

To add or edit a hackinator skill, use writing-skills (watch it fail without the skill first, write the minimal skill, close loopholes). Keep the flat namespace, active names, and "Use when..." descriptions that state triggers only — never a workflow summary.