Coding Pipeline

A disciplined 4-phase workflow for any non-trivial coding task. Each phase has a clear purpose, explicit exit criteria, and a loop-back rule when things go wrong. The phases exist because AI agents' default failure mode is blind iteration: edit → build → edit → build → give up. This skill forces hypothesis-driven work, one-fix-at-a-time discipline, root-cause verification, and bounded debugging.

This is a rigid skill — follow the phases exactly. Do not skip, merge, or reorder.

Core Rule

Every non-trivial task — bug fix, feature, refactor — goes through all 4 phases in order:

┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────┐    ┌───────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐
│  1 PLANNER  │───▶│ 2 CODER  │───▶│  3 VALIDATOR  │───▶│  4 DEBUGGER │
│ hypothesis  │    │ one fix  │    │ build + root  │    │ max 3 tries │
└─────────────┘    └────┬─────┘    └───────┬───────┘    └──────┬──────┘
       ▲                │                  │                   │
       │                │ unclear cause    │ fails             │ new hypothesis
       └────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────────────────┘
                        loop back to PLANNER

Skipping a phase or jumping straight to Phase 2 is the failure mode this skill prevents.

Quick Reference

Phase 1 — Planner

Goal: Understand the task and formulate an explicit hypothesis before any code change.

Required outputs:

1. Task breakdown — what is actually being asked? Break into the smallest independent units.
2. Hypothesis — one sentence in the form: "I believe [symptom] is caused by [cause], because [evidence]."
3. Scope — which files/modules are in-bounds, which are explicitly out-of-bounds
4. Success criteria — how Phase 3 will verify this is fixed (not just the symptom gone)

Forbidden in Phase 1:

• Editing any code
• Running build or test commands to "see what happens"
• Multiple parallel hypotheses — pick one, commit to it
• Vague hypotheses ("something with the auth flow") — sharpen until specific

Exit criteria: Hypothesis is concrete, testable, and you can point to why this is the cause — not just what looks broken.

Loop-back trigger: If during Phase 2 or 3 the hypothesis turns out wrong, return here. Do not patch on top of a broken hypothesis.

See references/phase-1-planner.md for hypothesis patterns and scope breakdown templates.

Phase 2 — Coder

Goal: Apply exactly one focused change that tests the hypothesis from Phase 1.

Rules:

1. One fix at a time — one change, one purpose, one file or one tightly-scoped set of files
2. Full files, not snippets — deliver complete file contents when showing work
3. No speculative refactoring — resist "while I'm in here…"; surgical scope only
4. If the hypothesis is unclear mid-change → STOP, return to Phase 1

Definition of "one fix": A single logical change that either proves or disproves the hypothesis. Three unrelated improvements = three separate Planner → Coder → Validator cycles.

Exit criteria: Change is applied, diff contains only the intended work, nothing unrelated.

See references/phase-2-coder.md for scope discipline and loop-back triggers.

Phase 3 — Validator

Goal: Verify the change fixed the root cause, not just the symptom.

Checklist (adapt to stack):

1. Build check — compile/transpile succeeds, no new errors
2. Type check — no new type errors; any @ts-ignore / type: ignore needs an explicit written justification comment
3. Focused test — run the specific test that proves the hypothesis, not the full suite
4. Root-cause verification — the fix addresses the Phase 1 hypothesis, not a side effect
5. Scope verification — diff matches what Phase 1 planned; no accidental changes
6. Regression check — nothing adjacent broke

The symptom-vs-cause test:

If I rolled back this change, would the symptom return because of the same cause, or because of something else?

If you can't answer confidently, the fix is symptomatic. Go back to Phase 1.

Exit criteria: All checks pass, root cause verified, no regressions.

Failure → Phase 4 Debugger.

See references/phase-3-validator.md for stack-agnostic validation patterns.

Phase 4 — Debugger

Goal: Bounded debugging with documentation. Escalation over thrashing.

Hard rules:

1. Max 3 attempts — after 3 failed fixes, STOP and escalate to the user
2. Document every attempt — what was tried, what happened, why it failed
3. Never repeat a fix — if attempt 1 failed, attempt 2 must be substantively different
4. Never "just try again" — every attempt must be backed by a new hypothesis

Attempt log template (write to .pipeline-state/attempts-\x3Ctask>.md or inline in chat):

### Attempt N
- **Hypothesis**: What I now believe is wrong
- **Change**: What I modified (specific files/lines)
- **Result**: What happened (error output, unchanged behavior, new symptom)
- **Why it failed**: The actual root cause of this failure
- **Next direction**: What to try next OR escalate

After 3 failed attempts: STOP. Surface to the user with the full attempt log. Do not continue with a 4th attempt unless the user explicitly authorizes it.

Recovery trigger: If during Phase 4 a fundamentally new hypothesis emerges, return to Phase 1 — not Phase 2. A new hypothesis means a new cycle, not continued debugging.

See references/phase-4-debugger.md for escalation patterns and worked examples.

Phase Transition Gates

No phase transition is automatic. Each requires explicit criteria:

Detection Triggers

Activate this pipeline automatically when the task is:

• A bug report — user says something is broken
• A feature request — non-trivial new functionality
• A refactor — touching existing code for non-cosmetic reasons
• An error investigation — digging into unexpected behavior
• A test failure — a test that was passing now fails
• A deployment issue — something that worked in dev fails in prod

Skip the pipeline only for:

• Trivial edits (typo, formatting, one-line config)
• Pure documentation changes
• Explicitly exploratory work ("just experiment, don't commit")

Anti-Patterns

What this pipeline prevents:

1. Symptom patching — fixing what looks wrong without understanding why
2. Multi-fix chaos — changing three things at once, unable to tell which one worked
3. Retry loops — trying the same fix with minor variations hoping it sticks
4. Premature coding — jumping to Phase 2 before Phase 1 is done
5. Validation skipping — "it compiles, ship it" without root-cause check
6. Unbounded debugging — 8 attempts, no log, no escalation
7. Speculative refactoring — "while I'm here, let me also clean up this other file"
8. Hypothesis drift — quietly changing the hypothesis mid-fix to match what you just did
9. Type-ignore laziness — @ts-ignore without a written justification comment
10. Scope creep — task was "fix login redirect", PR touches 14 unrelated files

See references/anti-patterns.md for concrete before/after examples of each.

Integration with Other Skills

This pipeline works well with — but does not replace — the following:

• systematic-debugging — when Phase 4 escalates, hand off to systematic-debugging for the full investigation protocol
• self-improving-agent — after every failed attempt in Phase 4, log to .learnings/ERRORS.md so the next task starts with that knowledge
• root-cause-analysis — when Phase 3 root-cause verification is ambiguous, escalate to RCA
• test-driven-development — Phase 1's "success criteria" naturally aligns with TDD's "write the failing test first"

See references/integration.md for detailed pairing patterns.

Platform Integration

Platform-specific activation and hook configuration lives in references/:

• references/openclaw-integration.md — OpenClaw workspace setup, inter-session coordination
• references/hooks-setup.md — Claude Code / Codex hook configuration (UserPromptSubmit)
• references/multi-agent.md — Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot activation patterns

Best Practices

1. Always start at Phase 1 — no shortcuts, no exceptions for "obvious" fixes
2. One hypothesis, one fix — resist bundling
3. Phase 3 verifies cause, not symptom — this is the hard check
4. Phase 4 is bounded — 3 attempts, then escalate
5. Document every failed attempt — pattern recognition matters
6. Full files, no snippets — for reviewability
7. Loop back to Planner on uncertainty — cheaper than debugging a wrong hypothesis
8. Escalate fast — 3 failed attempts is a signal, not a suggestion

Source

This pipeline is based on a production coding standard used in NestJS/Next.js/PHP production systems. It emerged from repeated observation that AI agents, left to their defaults, retry-loop into incoherence on non-trivial work. The 4-phase structure + max-3-attempts rule + mandatory hypothesis is the minimum structure needed to keep agents disciplined.