record-the-why
Skill87 starsChanged 33 days agoMITView on GitHub
Capture the reasoning behind a decision permanently, not just the decision itself. Use when making an architectural choice, changing a public API or data format, choosing between libraries, or reversing an earlier decision. Also use when a comment would just restate the code instead of explaining a non-obvious constraint. Skip for self-explanatory code or decisions that are trivially reversible.
In this repository28 other files it gives its agents.
- adversarial-reviewSkill
- bite-sized-planSkill
- chestertons-fenceSkill
- clarify-the-real-problemSkill
- context-economySkill
- delegate-to-subagentsSkill
- design-for-the-next-readerSkill
- fresh-context-reviewSkill
- honest-artifactsSkill
- interface-contractsSkill
- measure-before-optimizingSkill
- observability-and-instrumentationSkill
- persistent-memorySkill
- plan-on-diskSkill
- premortemSkill
- root-cause-disciplineSkill
- search-firstSkill
- security-review-by-haloSkill
- security-reviewSkill
- senior-engineer-mindsetSkill
- simplicity-budgetSkill
- surgical-changeSkill
- threat-and-scale-checkSkill
- verifiability-firstSkill
- verify-before-agreeingSkill
- verify-before-claimingSkill
- weigh-tradeoffsSkill
- widen-the-solution-spaceSkill
The file
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
1 rule. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈1
Distinctive · estimate
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
- Distinctive: line 22
Read the file matching the model actually running before applying this skill.
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
Record the Why (router)
This skill is tuned per model. Pick the file that matches the model actually running, and apply it in full — the ADR structure and the never-delete-the-record rule are the same everywhere, but how much narration to expect and how eagerly to delegate differs by tier.
| Model | File |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | opus-5-5.md |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | fable-5-1.md |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | sonnet-5.md |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | sonnet-5-5.md |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | haiku-5-5.md |
| OpenAI GPT-6 Astra | gpt-6-astra.md |
| OpenAI GPT-6 Sol | gpt-6-sol.md |
| OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol | gpt-6-1-sol.md |
| OpenAI GPT-6 Luna | gpt-6-luna.md |
Read the file matching the model actually running before applying this skill.
Running a model not listed above (an older generation, a different model family entirely)? sonnet-5.md carries the fullest general-purpose version of the underlying procedure — read that one rather than skipping this skill.
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Your trail
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