Design Guardrails Skill

Invoke this when drafting or reviewing an architecture plan, refactor proposal, or integration strategy. The goal is to reach a minimal, testable design that aligns with existing systems.

Process

1. •Clarify the problem
   • •Restate desired behavior, inputs/outputs, constraints, and success metrics.
   • •Confirm the current failure mode; prioritize solving root causes over layering new abstractions.
2. •Map context
   • •Identify affected services, libraries, data stores, and external dependencies.
   • •Surface coupling or boundary assumptions that must hold.
3. •Explore options
   • •Draft at least two viable approaches.
   • •For each, note complexity, required migrations, and operational impact.
4. •Select direction
   • •Choose the simplest option that satisfies invariants and fits the architecture roadmap.
   • •Document why alternatives were rejected and any prerequisite work.
5. •Plan validation & rollout
   • •Outline unit/integration tests, observability hooks, rollout steps, and fallback plans.
   • •Specify ownership for follow-up tasks (docs, migrations, feature flags).
6. •Communicate clearly
   • •Provide diagrams or tables when they clarify relationships.
   • •Highlight risks, open questions, and decisions needing stakeholder input.

Deliverable template

### Problem & Goals
- summary + constraints

### Current State
- key components & pain points

### Options
- Option A — pros/cons
- Option B — pros/cons

### Recommendation
- chosen approach + invariants + validation plan

### Risks & Follow-ups
- mitigations, owners, timeline signals

Safeguards

• •If context is stale or contradictory, ask the user to reconcile before finalizing.
• •Do not recommend broad rewrites when a contained fix solves the root issue.
• •Call out monitoring or rollback gaps explicitly; never assume they exist.