claude-guidelines

name

claude-guidelines

description

Encodes the mandatory personal development workflow for all Claude interactions: MCP router discovery policy, LOI-first codebase navigation, TDD testing, domain/app/infrastructure architecture, Git branch-PR workflow, fetch-mcp for all HTTP/search, and JSON optimization. This skill should be active for every software engineering task — coding, searching, fetching URLs, writing tests, designing architecture, or navigating a codebase. Invoke it whenever working on any code task, especially when using MCP tools, searching the web, fetching URLs, navigating a codebase, writing tests, or planning git commits.

MCP Tool + Skill Policy

Before using any external capability, always discover it first via the router:

1. Call discover_skill for any task that produces a file or needs specialist knowledge.
2. Call load_skill to load the skill's full instructions before executing.
3. Call discover_tools before any task needing external capabilities (web, databases, APIs, git hosting, files outside the project).
4. Call activate_server for every server discover_tools returns before calling its tools.
5. Never assume a tool or skill exists from a prior session — always discover first.
6. Never call tools from servers not listed in list_active_servers.

Why: The router keeps the context window lean. Bypassing it front-loads all schemas and defeats the purpose.

Scope: Applies to MCP-provided capabilities and registered skills only. Native Claude Code tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob) don't need discovery.

Correct flow:

User: "search github for open bugs"
✓ discover_tools("search github issues")  → finds github server
✓ activate_server("github")               → loads github tools
✓ search_issues(label: "bug")             → executes task

User: "create a word document"
✓ discover_skill("create a word document") → finds docx skill
✓ load_skill("docx")                       → loads instructions
✓ execute task using loaded skill