systematic-development

A structured development workflow guides you through Research, Plan, Tests First, and Implementation phases with explicit checkpoints. This systematic approach prevents skipped steps, reduces rework, and ensures consistent progress on features, refactors, or maintenance tasks without needing specialized patterns.

Begin with a guided workflow: say "guide check" to enter the Research phase, then follow prompted phases that validate assumptions, plan scope, write tests before code, and implement systematically. This eliminates false starts and clarifies requirements upfront.

Test-first development is embedded in the workflow as the Tests First phase after planning. You define test cases that specify expected behavior before writing implementation code, catching design issues early and ensuring feature completeness across feature additions, refactors, and maintenance.

Yes. The phase-driven workflow applies to refactoring by starting with Research to understand current behavior, Planning to define refactoring scope, Tests First to validate the refactored code works identically, then Implementation to execute changes safely.

Use this workflow for any coding task lacking a specialized pattern—most feature additions, refactors, and maintenance work fit here. Reserve specialized patterns like Test-Driven Development or Bug Hunt for tasks with distinct constraints or investigation needs.