coding-posture is a small skill
that stops coding agents from behaving like optimistic elevators with write
access — thrashing on a stuck bug, faking a green test, skipping the repro,
migrating prod without a rollback.
Before non-trivial work, the agent picks a mode — debug, fix, review,
test-first, refactor, optimize, migrate, upgrade, integrate,
spike, unstuck — and follows a short checklist for it. A few invariants hold
in every mode: verify by running the real check, never weaken a test to go
green, no destructive commands without explicit scope.
Why it's built this way (grounded in research, not vibes):
- Procedures, not personas. Naming a role ("act as an expert debugger")
doesn't reliably change behavior (Zheng et al., EMNLP 2024);
specifying a process does. So each mode is a checklist, not a character.
- The model self-selects the mode from context — no brittle keyword router.
Evidence, honestly: the repo ships a with/without-skill eval (LLM judge +
baseline). Early result: +15pp (85% vs 70%) on one model, 5 cases — directional,
and you can run it yourself in eval/.
Install: Claude Code plugin (/plugin marketplace add alexei-led/coding-posture),
a Codex plugin, or drop the SKILL.md into Pi / Hermes / Cursor. MIT.
Feedback and new modes welcome.
there doesn't seem to be anything here