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bnemabnema/pi-public/skills/prototype/SKILL.md

prototype

Skill1 starsChanged 4 months agoMITView on GitHub

Build a throwaway prototype to flesh out a design — a runnable terminal app for state/business-logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route.

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

3 rules. 2 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 2

    Common

    Most of the 172 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:

    Skip the polish: No tests, no error handling beyond what makes the prototype _runnable_, no abstractions.

    line 25
  2. Common:

    Surface the state: After every action (logic) or on every variant switch (UI), print or render the full relevant state so the user can see …

    line 26
  3. Distinctive:

    Delete or absorb when done: When the prototype has answered its question, either delete it or fold the validated decision into the real …

    line 27

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 172 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

Prototype

A prototype is throwaway code that answers a question. The question decides the shape.

Pick a branch

Identify which question is being answered — from the user's prompt, the surrounding code, or by asking if the user is around:

  • "Does this logic / state model feel right?" → LOGIC.md. Build a tiny interactive terminal app that pushes the state machine through cases that are hard to reason about on paper.
  • "What should this look like?" → UI.md. Generate several radically different UI variations on a single route, switchable via a URL search param and a floating bottom bar.

The two branches produce very different artifacts — getting this wrong wastes the whole prototype. If the question is genuinely ambiguous and the user isn't reachable, default to whichever branch better matches the surrounding code (a backend module → logic; a page or component → UI) and state the assumption at the top of the prototype.

Rules that apply to both

  1. Throwaway from day one, and clearly marked as such. Locate the prototype code close to where it will actually be used (next to the module or page it's prototyping for) so context is obvious — but name it so a casual reader can see it's a prototype, not production. For throwaway UI routes, obey whatever routing convention the project already uses; don't invent a new top-level structure.
  2. One command to run. Whatever the project's existing task runner supports — pnpm <name>, python <path>, bun <path>, etc. The user must be able to start it without thinking.
  3. No persistence by default. State lives in memory. Persistence is the thing the prototype is checking, not something it should depend on. If the question explicitly involves a database, hit a scratch DB or a local file with a clear "PROTOTYPE — wipe me" name.
  4. Skip the polish. No tests, no error handling beyond what makes the prototype runnable, no abstractions. The point is to learn something fast and then delete it.
  5. Surface the state. After every action (logic) or on every variant switch (UI), print or render the full relevant state so the user can see what changed.
  6. Delete or absorb when done. When the prototype has answered its question, either delete it or fold the validated decision into the real code — don't leave it rotting in the repo.

When done

The answer is the only thing worth keeping from a prototype. Capture it somewhere durable (commit message, ADR, issue, or a NOTES.md next to the prototype) along with the question it was answering. If the user is around, that capture is a quick conversation; if not, leave the placeholder so they (or you, on the next pass) can fill in the verdict before deleting the prototype.

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Your trail

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