Design first
description: “Non-trivial or forked work gets a design record PR first — reviewed and operator-merged — before any implementation begins.” alwaysApply: true
Section titled “description: “Non-trivial or forked work gets a design record PR first — reviewed and operator-merged — before any implementation begins.” alwaysApply: true”Non-trivial or forked work starts with a design record, not code. Write the record, open it as its own PR, run it through the review loop, and let the operator merge it. Only then dispatch implementation against the frozen record. The merged record is the contract implementers build to; a plausible approach in your head is not one. When the ask is small and unambiguous, skip straight to implementation — this gate is for the changes whose shape is in question.