docs: link first use of AI Coding Dictionary terms

Every docs page now links the first occurrence of each AI Coding
Dictionary term to its entry on aihero.dev. 202 links across 25 pages,
one link per term per page. Prose is unchanged — only links added.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Matt Pocock
2026-08-05 13:16:01 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent c553e932f0
commit 16bab00f34
25 changed files with 156 additions and 156 deletions
+5 -5
View File
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
`codebase-design` fixes the words you use to design a module: **module**, **interface**, **depth**, **seam**, **adapter**, **leverage**, **locality**. It defines each one precisely, bans the loose substitutes ("component", "service", "API", "boundary"), and states the handful of principles that follow from them.
It is a reference, not a process. There is no loop to run, no artifact it produces, no checkpoint where it asks you a question. Every other skill that touches design borrows its vocabulary; on its own it gives you the language and stops. That is the thing to know before you invoke it, because a skill with no process and no stopping rule will improvise one if you point a session at it and say "go" — see the questions below.
It is a reference, not a process. There is no loop to run, no artifact it produces, no checkpoint where it asks you a question. Every other skill that touches design borrows its vocabulary; on its own it gives you the language and stops. That is the thing to know before you invoke it, because a skill with no process and no stopping rule will improvise one if you point a [session](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/session) at it and say "go" — see the questions below.
## When to reach for it
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ Depth is deliberately *not* defined as the ratio of implementation lines to inte
- **The interface is the test surface.** Callers and tests cross the same seam. If you want to test *past* the interface, the module is the wrong shape.
- **One adapter means a hypothetical seam. Two adapters means a real one.** Don't cut a seam until something actually varies across it. A single-adapter seam is just indirection.
Two supporting files go further, and the skill reads them on demand rather than up front. [DEEPENING.md](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/codebase-design/DEEPENING.md) classifies a candidate's dependencies — in-process, local-substitutable, remote-but-owned, true-external — because the category decides how the deepened module gets tested across its seam. [DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/codebase-design/DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md) spins up parallel sub-agents to produce three or more radically different interfaces for the same module, then compares them on depth, locality and seam placement.
Two supporting files go further, and the skill reads them on demand rather than up front. [DEEPENING.md](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/codebase-design/DEEPENING.md) classifies a candidate's dependencies — in-process, local-substitutable, remote-but-owned, true-external — because the category decides how the deepened module gets tested across its seam. [DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/codebase-design/DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md) spins up parallel [sub-agents](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/subagent) to produce three or more radically different interfaces for the same module, then compares them on depth, locality and seam placement.
## Common questions
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Two supporting files go further, and the skill reads them on demand rather than
This is the most-asked question about the skill and the skill does not answer it. It defines what a deep module *is*; it says nothing about how to stop a stray import from reaching past the interface. [Issue #458](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/458) put it plainly: "let's say we're happy with the interface, it hides the details, etc. But how do we enforce it? I think without linting or clear guardrails, humans and LLMs alike will start making it messy over time." Matt's answer, in that thread, was three options: wrap it in a class or IIFE and accept that the class gets enormous; make it a package in a monorepo and accept the monorepo tooling; or use a linter like [dependency-cruiser](https://github.com/sverweij/dependency-cruiser) to forbid imports that bypass the interface. He has separately called Effect the best mechanism and dependency-cruiser the second-best. There is a `setup-ts-deep-modules` skill in the repo's `in-progress/` bucket that lays down a `src/packages/<name>/index.ts` convention, but it is a beta-channel skill with no docs page, and it has no lint rule shipped with it.
**I pointed a session at it and it burned 100k tokens redesigning things I never asked about.**
**I pointed a session at it and it burned 100k [tokens](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/token) redesigning things I never asked about.**
Known, and filed as [issue #449](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/449). The skill is model-invoked and describes itself as vocabulary, but nothing in it hard-stops an agent from treating it as a runnable process. Told to "resume in /codebase-design and drive the open decisions", an agent reached for the most action-shaped content it could find — the parallel sub-agents in `DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md` — re-explored code a previous session had already mapped, and ran a long way before asking anything. None of the guardrails a driver skill has (checkpoints, one question at a time, no auto-advance) are present here, because a reference has none. The workaround is to name a driver skill and let this one sit underneath it: `/grill-with-docs`, `/improve-codebase-architecture` or `/tdd` with `codebase-design` as the vocabulary. The issue is open.
@@ -69,9 +69,9 @@ It does now. For a long time it did not. The inline deep-module notes that used
**Does the design-it-twice pattern work outside Claude Code?**
Not cleanly. `DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md` says "spawn 3+ sub-agents in parallel using the Agent tool", which is Claude Code's tool by Claude Code's name. The repo ships metadata for other harnesses, including Codex, and those may expose nothing under that name — so the parallel-design phase is less portable than the skill's metadata suggests. Tracked in [issue #564](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/564), open.
Not cleanly. `DESIGN-IT-TWICE.md` says "spawn 3+ sub-agents in parallel using the Agent tool", which is Claude Code's [tool](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/tool) by Claude Code's name. The repo ships metadata for other [harnesses](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/harness), including Codex, and those may expose nothing under that name — so the parallel-design phase is less portable than the skill's metadata suggests. Tracked in [issue #564](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/564), open.
**Can I add my own concepts to the glossary — connascence, module secrets, progressive disclosure?**
**Can I add my own concepts to the glossary — connascence, module secrets, [progressive disclosure](https://www.aihero.dev/ai-coding-dictionary/progressive-disclosure)?**
People have proposed exactly those. [Issue #180](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/180) adds Parnas's module secrets and Page-Jones's connascence as a naming layer for *what* is leaking across a seam, with a working diff attached; [issue #303](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/issues/303) proposes progressive disclosure inside the implementation, so a module that is deep at its public interface isn't one undifferentiated slab underneath. Both are open and unmerged. The glossary as shipped is deliberately small, and the reason it stays small is stated in the skill itself: consistent language is the whole point, and a term nobody uses consistently is worse than no term.