Developer Tool Workflows

Use when the user is considering a meaningful change to the existing way things work — proposing a rewrite of a module or system, wanting to bypass or break a team coding standard or convention, talking about forking a library or framework instead of contributing upstream, or proposing to swap one technology for another in the stack. Triggers include phrases like "I want to rewrite this", "let me migrate us from X to Y", "we should replace [tool] with [other tool]", "I'm going to fork the library to fix this", "I don't agree with our coding standards", "let me just bypass the linter rule", "this whole module needs a rewrite", "let's switch from X to Y framework", or asking whether some kind of large change to existing code, conventions, or stack is a good idea. Walks through the four pitfalls from The Missing Readme (Chapter 3) — rewrites, going rogue on standards, forking without upstreaming, adding new technologies — using Horowitz's "10x better" rule as the decision criterion. For new-technology evaluation specifically, route to choose-boring-technology. Do not trigger for small in-flight refactors, code reviews, or active incidents.

Use when the user is expressing self-doubt about their competence (impostor syndrome territory) or showing signs of overconfidence about something they may not fully understand (Dunning-Kruger territory), or asking for help calibrating their self-assessment. Triggers include phrases like "I feel like a fraud", "everyone else seems to know more", "I shouldn't be here", "I'm going to be found out", "I'm not ready for this", "I got here by luck", "I'm an impostor", "this is easy I can do it in a day" (when scope is large), "I don't need to check with anyone, I know this" (in unfamiliar territory), or directly asking about impostor syndrome, the Dunning-Kruger effect, or how to know whether they're over- or under-estimating their own competence. Walks through both growth obstacles from The Missing Readme (Chapter 2) — impostor syndrome (under-estimation) and Dunning-Kruger (over-estimation) — with concrete calibration practices. Goal — see yourself accurately so you can actually climb through the four stages of competence. Do not trigger for general growth reflection (use growth-self-check) or tactical engineering questions.