Generated from
cat-harness/skills/sdlc/sdlc-core/minimal-change.md— do not edit here.
Minimal change
Kept from a higher layer’s retired CODING_AGENTS.md (owner, 2026-10-23: “E a”).
The rest of that file described a multifile.xml workflow nobody uses any
more, and is archived in fsh-guts
(its retired/ directory).
1. The smallest change that does the job
Every changed line is a cost to the reviewer. Reach the goal with the fewest lines changed.
- Keep existing whitespace, indentation, line order and names as they are, unless changing them is the point of the change.
- Do not reformat, reorder or rename code you are passing through.
- A diff should show the change and only the change. When one is asked for, give a minimal unified diff.
- Small is not the same as narrow. When the same defect has siblings, fix
them too: see
generalise-the-fix. This rule is against unrelated churn, not against a complete fix.
2. Read the code-style files first
Before writing code, look for the files that set this repository’s style and
follow them: AGENTS.md (and the CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md and
.github/copilot-instructions.md that point to it), any codestyle.md,
code_style.*, CONTRIBUTING.md, .editorconfig, and the linter and
formatter configs. Where they disagree with your habit, they win.
3. No HTML tags in Markdown
Write Markdown with Markdown: headings, lists, tables, links and code
fences, not <br>, <b>, <div>, <table> or <details>. HTML in
Markdown renders differently from one renderer to the next and hides
content from tools that read the source.
HTML comments are not tags and are allowed. Generators use them as region
markers (for example <!-- bean-notes:begin -->), and removing them breaks
the generator.