harden

name	harden
description	Hardens code for production: edge cases, resilience, security, and polish. Use when preparing code for release, checking production-readiness, or hardening a feature.

Harden

STARTER_CHARACTER = 🛡️

Production-readiness pass. Complete all four steps.

1. Edge Cases (ZOMBIES)

Walk through every category, add tests for gaps found:

• Zero/empty — null, empty string, zero, empty collection
• One — single item
• Many — multiple items, ordering
• Boundaries — min/max, off-by-one
• Interfaces — API contracts, type precision
• Exceptions — error paths, failure modes
• Simple — obvious cases easily overlooked

2. Production Checklist

See references/production-checklist.md for full checklist.

Address every item (mark N/A with reason if not applicable):

• Error handling: graceful degradation, meaningful messages
• Logging: key events, debug info, no sensitive data
• Observability and analytics: can you tell if it's working and valuable?
• Resilience: timeouts, retries where appropriate
• Performance: latency acceptable, no obvious bottlenecks
• Security: OWASP Top 10 walkthrough
• Accessibility (if user-facing)

3. Refactoring Pass

Invoke /refactoring on all files touched. This is a required step, not optional.

4. Writing Style Review

Two parts: coverage check, then style review.

Coverage — check that these exist where they should. Missing text is worse than imperfect text:

• Public API docs for every exported function/type
• UI text: labels, tooltips, empty states, confirmation dialogs, onboarding hints
• Error messages for every new failure path — user-facing and developer-facing
• README or handbook updates if the feature changes user-visible behavior
• Doc examples that compile/run
• Changelog entry if the project keeps one

Style — invoke /writing-style on all text added or modified. This includes error messages, log messages, API docs, CLI output — not just UI copy.

Gate

All five checks must pass:

• ZOMBIES walked through every category, tests added for gaps
• Production checklist: every item addressed (or N/A with reason)
• Refactoring pass complete
• Writing style reviewed
• All tests pass