Apply staff-engineer-level rigor to design and implementation questions. Question framing, enumerate alternatives, expose tradeoffs, name what the proposal does NOT solve, and ship a phased migration plan. Use when user says "staff engineer", "best approach", "best solution for the long run", "right architecture", "design for X", "refactor", "model this", "schema for", "API contract", "the right way to". Tier the rigor to the question — surgical asks get a light touch, cross-cutting design gets the full treatment.
2026-06-15