Coding Workflow Best Practices

Code Review Approach

1. •Understand before changing: Read the code thoroughly before suggesting modifications
2. •Check for patterns: Look for existing patterns in the codebase and follow them
3. •Consider edge cases: Think about null, empty, boundary conditions
4. •Security awareness: Watch for injection, XSS, improper auth patterns

Debugging Strategy

1. •Reproduce first: Confirm the issue before attempting fixes
2. •Isolate the problem: Narrow down to the smallest reproducible case
3. •Read error messages carefully: They often contain the solution
4. •Check recent changes: What changed since it last worked?
5. •Verify assumptions: Test each assumption individually

Refactoring Guidelines

1. •Tests first: Ensure tests exist before refactoring
2. •Small steps: Make incremental changes, verify each step
3. •One thing at a time: Don't mix refactoring with feature changes
4. •Preserve behavior: Refactoring should not change functionality

Common Pitfalls

• •Fixing symptoms instead of root causes
• •Over-engineering simple solutions
• •Ignoring existing patterns in the codebase
• •Making changes without understanding context
• •Skipping validation of user inputs at boundaries

Accumulated Learnings

See learnings.md for session-learned insights that supplement these guidelines.