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Engineering Fundamentals

These principles apply to every review regardless of language or framework. Skills provide language-specific rules; these fundamentals apply universally.

DRY​

  • Never duplicate logic, business rules, or data transformations.
  • Extract repeated code into functions, methods, helpers, or classes.
  • Prefer composition and small reusable utilities over copy-paste.

Simplicity First​

  • No features beyond the requirements.
  • No abstractions for single-use code.
  • No "flexibility" or "configurability" that wasn't requested.
  • No error handling for impossible scenarios.
  • If you write 200 lines and it could be 50, rewrite it.

Surgical Changes​

  • Don't "improve" adjacent code, comments, or formatting.
  • Don't refactor code that isn't broken.
  • Match existing style, even if you'd do it differently.
  • Remove imports/variables/functions that YOUR changes made unused.
  • Every changed line should trace directly to the user's request.

Approach Proportionality​

  • Is the change scope proportional to the problem described in the PR or work item definition? Flag changes that modify significantly more files or modules than the stated intent requires.
  • Does the approach introduce coordination overhead (new shared state, cross-module dependencies, or event-based coupling) that a simpler local change would avoid?

🤖 Crafted with precision by ✨Copilot following brilliant human instruction, then carefully refined by our team of discerning human reviewers.