| name | laziness-protocol |
| description | Guidance for doing the least work that fully solves the problem. Use on any task. Reuse before building, don't solve problems you don't have, don't gold-plate, and automate the repetitive, while holding "fully solves" as the hard constraint. |
Laziness Protocol
Productive laziness is doing the least work that completely solves the problem. The discipline is in both halves: the least work, and completely. Cutting effort is good; cutting correctness is not laziness, it's just a bug you'll pay for later.
Reuse before you build
Check whether something that already exists solves this, with a small adaptation, before writing a new thing. The cheapest code is the code you didn't write and don't have to maintain.
Don't solve problems you don't have
Build for the need in front of you, not for imagined future ones. Gold-plating, extra options, and speculative generality are work that adds permanent cost for a benefit that may never arrive.
Automate the repetitive
If you've done the same manual sequence three times, the lazy move is to automate it so you never do it a fourth. Spend once to stop spending repeatedly.
"Fully solves" is the line
Laziness that leaves the problem half-solved, or quietly drops a case, is false economy: it reappears as a bug, a support ticket, or a redo. Do less, but finish.
