karpathy

To plan code changes before implementation, surface assumptions and uncertainties explicitly, then define minimal, verifiable success criteria. This plan-driven approach transforms tasks into explicit steps, ensuring you think before coding and reduce unnecessary risk.

The best way to keep code modifications minimal is to favor simplicity first, modifying only what is necessary to meet requirements. This surgical change approach preserves existing structure and behavior by avoiding unnecessary abstractions during implementation and review.

Verifiable success criteria for a coding task are defined by transforming goals into explicit steps with clear, testable outcomes. This goal-driven execution ensures every task has documented verification standards across ideation, implementation, and review phases.

Use a plan-driven execution approach when you need to clarify scope and enforce minimal changes across complex tasks. It is essential when reducing waste and risk by making assumptions explicit before writing code and defining verifiable goals.

Codebases accumulate unnecessary abstractions when developers skip thinking before coding and fail to enforce simplicity. Without a disciplined framework to surface tradeoffs and favor minimal implementations, scope creep introduces complex, unnecessary structures.