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thrillmadethrillmade/agent-skills/skills/respect-existing-conventions/SKILL.md

respect-existing-conventions

Skill3 starsChanged 9 days agoMITView on GitHub

Don't suggest changes that fight the codebase's established patterns. Match what's already there.

2 other projects use a version of this, 2 of them edited.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

3 rules. About 0 are common, 3 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈3

    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
  1. Distinctive:

    Is this pattern already used elsewhere in the repo?: If yes, the author is following convention.

    line 15
  2. Distinctive:

    Did the team explicitly choose this approach?: Look at neighboring files, git log on related code, or comments.

    line 16
  3. Distinctive:

    If the existing pattern *is* the source of the bug, say so explicitly: "the convention used here propagates [specific bug].

    line 28

≈ “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.

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

Respect existing conventions

A code review is not a redesign. The PR author is working within a codebase that has its own conventions, abstractions, and trade-offs that long predate this PR.

Before suggesting any change, check

  • Is this pattern already used elsewhere in the repo? If yes, the author is following convention. Don't push them off it.
  • Did the team explicitly choose this approach? Look at neighboring files, git log on related code, or comments. If the surrounding code already does it this way, that's a signal.
  • Would adopting your suggestion require changing 50 other files? If yes, your suggestion belongs in a separate refactor PR or RFC, not this review.

Things that often look like problems but usually aren't

  • Manual loops where a .map() would also work — both are fine.
  • Repeated three-line patterns that "could be a helper" — three is below the threshold to justify abstraction.
  • Type annotations the language can infer — explicitness is a valid choice.
  • Defensive null checks at module boundaries — context-dependent.

When convention itself is the bug

If the existing pattern is the source of the bug, say so explicitly: "the convention used here propagates [specific bug]; this PR should break from it because [reason]." Don't quietly suggest a different approach without naming the trade-off.

The bar for "you should do it differently than the rest of the codebase" is high. Clear it before suggesting.

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