guideline-reader

name	guideline-reader
description	Navigate the language-specific coding guidelines to follow best practices, idioms, and conventions when writing or reviewing code.
topics	guidelines, coding standards, best practices, idioms, conventions, error handling, concurrency, naming, testing, style

Guideline Reader

You have access to language-specific coding guidelines for the target repository. The guidelines discovery table is already inlined in your prompt under "## Available Language Guidelines" — scan it now to see which languages are available.

The guidelines are organized as a hierarchy of markdown documents. Each language has a top-level index.md that links to category-specific files containing the actual rules. Do not stop at the top-level index — it is an index, not the guidelines themselves.

When to Read Guidelines

Consult the guidelines before you:

Situation	Read from these categories
Write new code	All categories matching the language(s) in use
Handle errors	error-handling/ — wrapping, sentinel errors, error grading
Use goroutines, channels, or mutexes	concurrency/ — patterns, context propagation, synchronization
Name variables, functions, or packages	naming-and-style/ — naming conventions, formatting rules
Design interfaces or inject dependencies	abstractions/ — composition, interface design, DI patterns
Write or modify tests	testing/ — table-driven tests, mocks, benchmarks, fuzz tests
Structure packages or modules	project-organization/ — package layout, module boundaries
Work with slices, maps, or structs	data-types-and-memory/ — allocation patterns, value vs pointer semantics
Use stdlib packages (io, net/http, etc.)	standard-library/ — idiomatic usage of standard library

How to Navigate

1. Scan the inlined guidelines table in your prompt — it shows each language and the path to its index.md
2. Read the index.md for the language you are working with — it contains a Category Index table with "When to Read" guidance
3. Read the category index.md for each category relevant to your task (e.g., error-handling/index.md)
4. Read deeper topic files if the category index references them and they are relevant to your work
5. Only read what you need — typically 2-4 category files per task

Important Notes

• Guidelines are best practices, not absolute rules. If a guideline conflicts with the existing codebase's established patterns, prefer consistency with the codebase.
• The categories listed above are examples from Go guidelines. Other languages may have different categories — always check the language's index.md first.
• Do NOT re-read the guidelines discovery table — its content is already inlined in your prompt.