alex-core-invariants - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: alex-core-invariants description: "Use when reviewing architecture, refactors, state/data ownership, failure handling, debug discipline, work-in-progress hygiene, or concurrency policy against Alex's eight fixed invariants."

Alex Core Invariants Skill

Source of Truth

Canonical policy text lives in README.md.
If this file and README.md differ, README.md wins.
On policy drift, README.md wins.

When To Use

Use this skill when reviewing architecture, refactors, data flow, persistence boundaries, migration design, failure-handling behavior, or debug discipline (especially when a problem lives in a standardized infra/spec domain — Cloudflare, HTTP, OAuth, browser APIs, AWS/GCP, Kubernetes, build toolchains).

Workflow

Read README.md first.
Identify the canonical owner for each important truth.
Flag dual-write, legacy shadow paths, silent fallback, and history-as-canonical patterns.
Prefer self-heal from live truth over adding another truth surface.
If explicit failover exists, verify that it is observable and does not mutate canonical truth.
For problems in a standardized domain, search the official documentation before dispatching hypotheses.
Recommend the smallest change that restores the invariant boundary.

Output Expectations

Findings first when doing review work.
Name which invariant is being violated.
Prefer fixes that reduce structure, ownership overlap, or hidden recovery logic.
Call out explicit failover separately from silent fallback.
For doc-first violations, cite the exact docs page that already had the answer.

Do Not

Create a second canonical copy of the eight invariants in another file.
Keep legacy write paths alive "just in case".
Hide primary-path failure with quiet fallback behavior.
Burn cycles dispatching guesses on a problem the official docs already solved.