principle-redesign-from-first-principles

Redesign from first principles: read all affected files, imagine building the system from scratch with the new requirement included, and propagate the change through every reference. Deliver the redesign incrementally rather than as one large change.

It is a design method where you treat a new requirement as if it had been a foundational assumption from day one, instead of bolting it onto the current design. This preserves design coherence and option value as the codebase evolves.

Redesign when a new requirement conflicts with core assumptions of the current design, such as adding multi-tenancy to a single-tenant app. Patching works for peripheral changes, but foundational shifts benefit from rethinking the whole design.

No. The method asks you to think about the whole redesign first, then deliver it incrementally. This keeps changes reviewable and shippable while still moving toward the coherent target design.

It requires reading and understanding all affected files, which takes more upfront effort than a quick patch. For trivial or isolated changes, the full redesign pass may be unnecessary overhead.