domains / families / software-engineering / constraint-driven-development

constraint-driven-development

authentic

'Write the project quality bar as enforced CONSTRAINTS.md so agents stop

When to use

• Starting a project or a significant feature and no quality bar is written down
• The user asks to "set up constraints", "add quality gates", "define our standards", or "stop the agent shipping junk"
• An agent is producing volume nobody is reading line by line
• CI has checks but nobody can say which ones block a merge and which ones are decoration
• Coverage, performance, or accessibility numbers get argued about per-PR instead of decided once
• You're about to run `/build auto` or any autonomous loop, and the only thing standing between it and main is a test suite the agent also wrote
• The project already has a `CONSTRAINTS.md` and the user isn't changing it — read it and follow it instead
• One-off scripts, spikes, throwaway prototypes

When not to use

• Guidance only: does not replace running the project's own linters, type checkers, formatters, or test suites.
• Stop and ask when required inputs, permissions, or scope boundaries are missing.

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