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Use when touching build scripts, release or packaging steps, publish flows, or CI config.
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Based on SOC occupation classification
Use when about to show any prose a human will read - docs, README, commit bodies, UI copy, store text.
Use when building any mechanic that could fail on a machine out of reach - a shipped product, a CLI a user runs, a server.
Use when doing any work in a project that has the instincts plugin installed
Use when about to build something someone proposed, especially when the proposer sounds confident and the idea sounds obviously fine.
Use when adding any cross-cutting change - a new gate, limit, permission check, or rule that must apply everywhere.
Use when about to build or agree to build a feature, test, or check, especially when the request sounds big or clever.
| name | build-release-mindset |
| description | Use when touching build scripts, release or packaging steps, publish flows, or CI config. |
Build and release code has a different discipline than feature code: it must be reproducible, abortable, and reversible. A build that depends on whatever the last run left behind is unreliable by definition. Before you change a build step, ask what happens if it crashes halfway, and whether you could undo the release after it ships.
Editing a build script, a release or packaging step, a publish flow, or CI config.
A release script builds against eight SDK versions over an hour, then you discover the first one was broken from the start — the whole hour is wasted. A canary fixes it: build the smallest target first, and abort the run if it fails, so a broken setup costs two minutes instead of sixty. The same instinct catches a "0 tests passed" that would otherwise ship green because nobody asserted the count was above zero — a loud failure is always better than a silent bad artifact.
| Thought | Reality |
|---|---|
| "The machine's probably clean" | Probably is not a guarantee; start clean. |
| "It built, so it's good" | Built is not the same as validated. Check the output. |
| "I'll just overwrite the last build" | Then you can't roll back when this one's bad. |
| "All eight will be fine" | Smoke-test one before you spend an hour on eight. |
