pattern-language

name	pattern-language
description	Mine a codebase's recurring solutions into a named pattern language, or apply existing patterns to a new problem with the local adaptation. The constraint system that keeps design intuition grounded — without it, felt-sense wanders into impractical excursions. Use when documenting conventions, onboarding code into an existing repo, or asking how a thing is usually done here. Triggers on "what's our convention", "how do we usually", "extract patterns", "document conventions", "pattern language".
metadata	{"author":"Mark Anthony Cianfrani","version":"0.1.0"}

Pattern Language

A set of proven solutions, named and written down, that you reuse with adaptation. The Gang of Four patterns are the famous example. It is the constraint system that keeps taste from wandering. The other skills in this set lean on it.

Lightest of the set. Most of its value overlaps with a good conventions doc or ADR. Keep it if your repo has strong habits but no written record of them. Skip it if your conventions are already documented.

Mine

1. Pick one recurring concern: error handling, data fetching, validation, module layout.

2. Find three or more places the codebase already solves it. Use ast-grep for structure, rg for text.

3. If they agree, that is a pattern. Name it. Write: the name, when to use it, the shape, and one real example at file:line.

4. If they disagree, that is not a pattern. It is drift. Flag it. Do not enshrine an accident as a convention.

Apply

1. Name the problem.

2. Match it against the documented patterns. If none exist, mine on the fly from the three nearest examples.

3. Surface the matching pattern and the adaptation this context needs. Patterns get reused with changes, not copy-pasted. The change is the point.