prototype

Topics in the source

• Prototype
• Pick a branch
• Rules that apply to both
• When done

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

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