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bnemabnema/pi-pstack/skills/principle-build-the-lever/SKILL.md

principle-build-the-lever

Skill2 starsChanged 3 months agoMITView on GitHub

Apply to any non-trivial work, not just bulk work: edits, migrations, analyses, checks. Build the tool that does it or proves it (codemod, script, generator, or a skill your subagents follow) instead of working by hand. The tool is the artifact a reviewer can rerun.

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

4 rules. 3 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 3

    Common

    Most of the 36 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 1

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Common:

    When the work isn't trivial, build the tool that does it instead of doing it by hand.

    line 8
  2. Common:

    Pattern: Default to building the lever.

    line 12
  3. Common:

    Do the first unit by hand to learn the recipe, then build the tool.

    line 14
  4. Distinctive:

    Commit the lever when the work outlives the session, so the next run reruns it instead of redoing it.

    line 19

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 36 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Build the Lever

When the work isn't trivial, build the tool that does it instead of doing it by hand.

Why: Two payoffs. Throughput: a codemod, generator, or script does the work the same way every time and reruns for free. Confidence: the tool is one artifact a reviewer can read and rerun to check the work. Hand-done changes can only be re-verified by redoing them. A deterministic script turns "trust me" into "run this".

Pattern: Default to building the lever. Skip it only when the task is genuinely trivial, a couple of obvious edits you can see at a glance.

  • Do the first unit by hand to learn the recipe, then build the tool. Prove it by rerunning it on that unit and diffing against your hand-done version. Make the lever safe to rerun. A reviewer will.
  • Codemod or script for edits, generator for repetitive files, a dump-to-sqlite query for analysis, a rerunnable check for verification.
  • A deterministic lever beats fan-out. If the tool can process every unit in one pass, run it yourself; don't fan out delegates to hand-apply what a script can do.
  • When you fan work out to subagents, write the lever as a skill they all read: the recipe, the verification contract, and the do-not-touch fences in one artifact, so every delegate inherits the same hardened version instead of re-explaining it per prompt and watching each one drift. Keep it outside the delegates' write scope so they can't quietly edit the contract.
  • Applying this principle produces a file. If you cited it and there is no codemod, script, generator, or delegate skill in the diff, you didn't apply it.
  • Commit the lever when the work outlives the session, so the next run reruns it instead of redoing it.

Balance: The bar is triviality, not repetition. A one-off still earns a lever when the lever is what makes the work checkable. Per the Laziness Protocol, build the smallest script that does or proves the job, never a framework.

Distinct from Encode Lessons in Structure, which makes a recurring instruction a durable guardrail. This is throughput and reviewability on the work in front of you. For scripting the verification itself, see Prove It Works.

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