eng-holistic-systems

# Holistic Systems Thinking ## Intent - Understand the true user goal, success metrics, and non-negotiable constraints. - Trace data/control flow across clients, services, contracts, and on-chain/off-chain boundaries. - Surface hidden couplings, scalability ceilings, and rollback requirements early. ## Inputs to Gather 1. Problem statement in your own words plus measurable success criteria. 2. Existing architecture sketches (runtime, deployment, data lifecycle) and ownership boundaries. 3. Operational constraints: latency/throughput budgets, privacy rules, platform limitations, on-chain gas caps, store policies, etc. 4. Known risks: single points of failure, stale assumptions, migrations in flight. ## Workflow 1. **Map the ecosystem** - List upstream/downstream systems, contracts, and user touchpoints affected. - Identify invariants that must hold and where they can break. 2. **Reason about change scope** - Partition work into independently testable slices with explicit integration seams. - Decide where to place new logic (client/server/worker/contract) based on latency, trust, and deployability. 3. **Plan resiliency** - Define failure detection signals, graceful degradation, and rollback/feature-flag hooks. - Highlight areas needing schema/version negotiation. 4. **Record decisions for execution** - Capture the chosen approach, tradeoffs, and open questions inside the ticket/PR description before implementation. ## Verification - Confirm each requirement maps to at least one planned change and validation step. - Share the plan with a peer or stakeholder; ensure assumptions and risks are acknowledged. - Revisit this skill after implementation planning to see if new dependencies appeared; update the plan accordingly.