encode-lessons-in-structure

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# Encode Lessons in Structure

Encode recurring fixes in mechanisms (tools, code, metadata, automation) instead of textual instructions. Every error, human correction, and unexpected outcome is a learning signal. Capture it, route it, and close the loop.

**Why:** Textual instructions are easy to miss. They require the reader to notice, remember, and comply. Structural mechanisms (lint rules, metadata flags, runtime checks, automation scripts) enforce the rule without cooperation.

**Pattern:**
When you catch yourself writing the same instruction a second time:
1. Ask: can this be a lint rule, a metadata flag, a runtime check, or a script?
2. If yes, encode it. Delete the instruction
3. If no (genuinely requires judgment), make the instruction more prominent and add an example of the failure mode

**Pick the strongest rung.** When more than one mechanism would work, choose the strongest the situation allows: an unrepresentable state that cannot compile, then a lint or banned API that fails CI, then a canonical helper, then a runtime check, then a skill edit, then a style-guide line. Agents copy whatever the surrounding code already does, and a weaker guard becomes the next template.

**Corollary:** Don't paper over symptoms. If the fix is structural, ONLY use the structural fix. The instruction IS the symptom.

**Feedback loop:**
- **Capture every correction.** When the human intervenes or tests fail, decide if it's a one-off or a pattern.
- **Route to the right layer.** One-off: a memory note. Recurring fix: a skill edit or lint rule. Systemic issue: a principle.
- **Close the loop.** Don't just record. Apply now or create a concrete todo (a bd issue for anything that outlives the session).

**Anti-patterns:**
- Acknowledging without recording ("I'll keep that in mind" does not persist)
- Recording without routing (a note about a lint rule that should exist is wasted unless the lint rule gets implemented)
- Fixing without generalizing (fixing one instance while leaving the recurring pattern intact)

From baranbingol1/bbstack, MIT.

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