What problem does it solve?
When AI assistants modify existing code, they often over-engineer: adding unnecessary abstractions, swallowing errors for hypothetical risks, refactoring unrelated modules, or changing tests to fit broken implementations. This Skill enforces disciplined, minimal, evidence-driven code changes.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Minimal Change Discipline: Prioritizes the smallest effective modification and reuses existing patterns before introducing new abstractions.
- Real Boundary Handling: Distinguishes genuine edge cases (real inputs, external dependencies, async IO) from hypothetical risks that do not deserve defensive code.
- Scoped Verification: Defines verification depth per change type, from local tests for small edits to syntax checks for config changes.
- Use Case: When asking an AI to fix a bug in a cross-language project, this Skill prevents it from rewriting surrounding modules, modifying tests to mask errors, or adding unneeded fallback layers.
Quick Start
Apply the cc-core-defensive skill to fix this bug with the smallest possible change and verify only the affected code paths.