| name | software-developer |
| last_updated | "2026-05-24T00:00:00.000Z" |
| description | Deprecated as of 2026-05-12. Use senior-developer for production-quality Python implementation; chain through bioinformatician for bioinformatics-specific analysis and biologist-commentator for biological validation. |
| deprecated | true |
| deprecated_date | "2026-05-12T00:00:00.000Z" |
| replaced_by | senior-developer |
software-developer (deprecated)
This skill was deprecated on 2026-05-12 as a duplicate of senior-developer. Both skills provided production-quality Python implementation; the only meaningful difference was bioinformatics framing in this skill's prose examples. The actual Python practices (type hints, docstrings, pytest, error handling, CLI scaffolding) are identical.
What to use instead
| Need | Use |
|---|
| Production-quality Python implementation | senior-developer |
| Bioinformatics-specific data analysis | bioinformatician |
| Biological validation of bioinformatics code | biologist-commentator |
| Bioinformatics production code | bioinformatician → senior-developer → biologist-commentator |
senior-developer integrates with mathematician, statistician, junior-developer, copilot, and programming-pm for full pipeline coordination.
Rationale
The closer-reading audit (2026-05-12, planning entry 2026-05-12-tier-2-deprecate-software-developer-skill.md) found:
- Identical responsibilities (production code with tests, docs, type hints, error handling)
- Identical tooling expectations (pytest, type checking, coverage)
software-developer had bioinformatics framing in examples; senior-developer had broader integration (mathematician/statistician handoffs, junior-developer delegation)- Bioinformatics-specific work is better served by chaining
bioinformatician (analysis) → senior-developer (productionize) → biologist-commentator (validate) than by maintaining a separate "production bioinformatics" skill
Migration
Orchestrators that previously dispatched software-developer (programming-pm, principal-investigator, biologist-commentator, systematic-troubleshooter, systems-architect, copilot) now reference senior-developer directly. See the deprecation planning entry for the full file list updated in this change.
