Turn getting access into a tracked critical path instead of a passive wait. Enumerate every credential, permission, environment, and account the engagement needs, identify who approves each and its lead time, request long-lead items first, find workarounds…
Map everything a proposed change could break before making it - direct callers, cross-repository consumers, published contracts, event subscribers, feature flags, shared database objects, and config coupling - ending with a risk rating and the specific things…
Find and work with the organization's change process before it blocks you - which gates apply, what evidence each requires, submission deadlines, freeze periods, release calendars, and segregation of duties - then work backwards from the release window. Use…
Pin the current behavior of untested legacy code before changing it - including behavior that looks like a bug, because something downstream may depend on it - using golden master and approval test patterns so a refactor or fix can be verified as…
Work effectively in a codebase far larger than any context window, across an engagement that spans many sessions. Decide what to read versus search versus script versus delegate, build a durable CLAUDE.md so each session does not re-derive the same map,…
Sequence work by risk rather than convenience - unknowns first so bad news arrives early, slices that are independently shippable, dependencies on other teams surfaced with lead times, and an explicit statement of what would change the plan. Use once…
Write the executable deployment procedure - pre-checks, ordered steps, what to observe after each, the specific conditions that trigger a rollback, and the rollback procedure itself - so that someone who is not the author can run it at 2am. Use before the…
Teach the receiving team to operate and extend what you built, rather than only documenting it - pairing, walkthroughs, deliberately leaving work for them to finish, and confirming they can actually run it without you. Use when an engagement is ending and the…