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AI Coding Agent Project Starter Checklist
A small, copy-paste checklist for starting any project with a coding agent — scoped-change discipline, stating assumptions, a real testing step, and a clean handoff. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and GitHub Copilot.
Before writing code
- State your interpretation, not just your plan. If there's more than one reasonable reading of the request, say so explicitly before writing anything. Format: Interpretation / Assumption / What I'll do if I'm wrong.
- Scope the change before touching files. List which files this task actually requires. If a fix needs an adjacent file, say so before touching it — don't discover scope creep mid-edit.
- Write the smallest change that solves the problem. No refactoring adjacent code, no extracting helpers that weren't requested, no "while I'm here" improvements.
While writing code
- Match the surrounding code, not a personal preference — naming, comment density, error handling style, whatever the file already does.
- No orthogonal damage. Only touch files and functions directly relevant to the task. Flag unrelated issues instead of silently fixing them.
- Don't fail silently. A caught error that defaults to a fallback value is often how bugs go undetected. Classify what you're catching: transient, degraded-but-safe, or actually corrupting data?
Before calling it done
- Test it, don't assume it. "Should work" is not a status. Run the code, run the tests, or describe exactly what you verified and how.
- Show the evidence. If tests fail, say so with the actual output. If a step was skipped, say that plainly instead of implying it happened.
- Re-check the diff against the original ask. Confirm nothing outside the requested scope got touched before calling the task finished.
For the handoff
- Leave a plain-language summary of what changed and why — a note the next session (yours or another agent's) can read cold without re-deriving context from the diff.
- Name what's still open. Known limitations, deferred work, or anything you noticed but didn't fix — write it down instead of letting it disappear.
- Flag anything hard to reverse before doing it. Force-pushes, schema changes, deletions, production deploys — confirm first unless you've been explicitly told to proceed without asking.
Want the full version?
Claude Code Master Config Bundle
This checklist is the free preview. The full bundle is a 472-line CLAUDE.md — 15 core rules plus 6 stack-specific addendums for TypeScript/Node, React/Next.js, Python/FastAPI, SQL, REST, and Git.
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