Principles
How we build.
AI agents can produce code fast, but speed without discipline just ships bugs faster. These are the non-negotiable floors we hold every project to — the same floors our open-source skills encode so agents follow them by default.
Standards over vibes
A principle only counts if a machine can check it. Each floor below maps to a concrete gate in our tooling — a test, a review rule, a required artifact — so 'done' is proven, not asserted. This is what our engineering skills install into a project, and what our research keeps sharpening.
The non-negotiable floors
Security is decided on the server
Authentication and authorization are enforced server-side, never in the client. Secrets never reach the browser bundle. A check in the UI is user experience — the real decision happens where the request lands, against a verified identity.
Tests prove behavior
A test asserts what the software does — content, state, interaction, error and empty paths — not merely that it rendered. Coverage that doesn't fail when the behavior breaks isn't coverage. Quality gates block a merge the same way a broken build does.
Every change leaves an audit trail
No work is done until it's recorded: what changed, why, what was decided and what was rejected. The archive is part of the deliverable, not paperwork after it — so the reasoning survives the session that produced it.
Identity comes first
Every project starts with robust IAM: identity is not an email, access is relationship-based and multi-tenant by default, and passwordless is the goal. Authorization is granular from day one, not bolted on after a breach.
Open by default
Our tools are open-source and our findings are public. If it matters, you can read it, run it, fork it and build on it. Reproducibility is the point — a result you can't reproduce is an opinion.
Ship, don't hoard
We research by building and shipping; the lab and the products feed each other. The goal is to make the right way the easy way — tooling that installs the standard, keeps it current, and gets out of the developer's way.
See the floors in code.
The principles above are encoded as installable engineering skills for Claude Code — and the source is all on GitHub.