Governance

The standard workflow every task follows, and the rules the agent applies while it works.

Governance Framework

Governance Principles

Principles that keep both you and your agent building the same thing.

1. Hardening

Security by Default

Keep configs isolated and secrets out of code. When the environment is incomplete, fail loudly. Deny by default. Allow explicitly.

2. Resilience

Fault Tolerance

Build for the assumption that things go wrong. Running the same operation twice should produce the same result. When something breaks, degrade cleanly.

3. Narrative

Code as a Story

Read the code like a story. High-level intent at the top, implementation details below.

4. Visual Excellence

Consistency

High contrast, clear typography, and consistent layout. Design tokens over ad-hoc values.

5. Boundaries

Scope Control

One task at a time, finished before the next. A tight scope prevents a single change from breaking something three layers away.

6. Reflection

Reasoning First

Think before you build. Every architectural choice should have a reason behind it, not a habit or a guess.

7. Protocol

The Sovereign Gate

Project rules come before model habits. The agent stops at SPEC and PLAN for your approval, and never commits without your explicit authorization.

8. Contextual Efficiency

Token Discipline

Load what the task asks for, when it asks. Searching costs less than reading whole files, and stale context gets in the way more than it helps.

Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

Eight stages, from project start to production. Each one builds on the last.

1. Foundation

Set up linting and the core configuration. Get the fundamentals right from the start.

2. Observability & Security

Add logging, error tracking, and the security defaults your team should always have.

3. CI/CD Pipeline

Wire up CI/CD so every push runs the same checks automatically.

4. Role-Based Access Control

Add authentication and access control. Define who can do what, and where.

5. Design System & UI/UX

Build the component library and design tokens so the UI stays consistent.

6. Feature Evolution

Ship features using the patterns and domain structure established in earlier stages.

7. Production Readiness

Verify the deploy pipeline works end to end, including how to roll back cleanly.

8. Operational Governance

Monitor in production and keep a clear playbook for when things go wrong.

Governance Rules

All the quality standards in one place, for engineering that holds up.

API Design: Consistency, Resilience, and Contracts

Architecture4 rules

The Law of Resilience (Contract Reliability)
The Law of Hardening (Data Masking)
The Law of the Cascade (Endpoint Narrative)
Alignment Protocols

Data Access: Performance, Safety, and Scalability

Architecture8 rules

Connection Management
Query Performance
Indexing Strategy
Pagination
Caching Strategy
Migrations & Schema Evolution
Transaction Boundaries
Data Integrity at the Database Level