The ruleset
Two parts: a unified domain taxonomy and a naming convention. Applies to every primitive in Gnesis — skills, hooks, plugins, agents, commands, workflows.
Domain taxonomy
One set of 13 domains applies to every primitive type. No meta bucket. No standalone design or content. No debug. Marketing-facing design and content live in marketing/. Product-facing design and content live in product/.
Naming convention
Strict kebab-case, ≤30 characters, verb-noun for actions and noun-suffix for references, no gerunds. Twelve approved suffixes from a closed dictionary. Five banned prefix patterns auto-route to _archive/.
Contents
- Taxonomy The 13 domains and the rules that bound them.
- Naming rules Ten rules with examples of accept and reject, plus decision logic for word form.
- Suffix dictionary Twelve approved suffixes mapped to intents, plus banned alternatives.
- Cheat sheet One-card reference compressing every rule for daily use.
13 domains, one taxonomy across all types
Same domains regardless of whether a primitive is an agent, hook, plugin, skill, command, or workflow. The folder is the domain. This unblocks cross-type discovery and forces the commands flat-namespace exception to die.
The 13 domains
code
Application development. Language and framework patterns, refactoring, code generation, API design, schema work.
devops
Shipping and operating. Deploy, CI/CD, canary, monitoring, infrastructure, runtime debugging.
audits
Read-only verification. Multi-lens, journey, bundle, security, accessibility audits, dev-time debugging.
testing
Test creation and execution. Frameworks, generation, fixtures, mocks, e2e, load testing.
marketing
The function. Strategy plus design assets plus content for acquisition. Brand, ad creative, landing pages, SEO, copy.
product
Product methodology plus product UI/UX plus in-app content. PM toolkit, dashboards, mobile UI, in-product copy.
data
Schemas, migrations, ML, scraping, analytics, BI, vector and graph patterns.
security
Hardening, pentest, compliance, secret handling.
connectors
MCPs, API clients, browser tooling. The kit talking to external systems.
lifecycle
Session start and end, context recovery, handoff, capture, compaction.
kit
Kit-about-kit operations. kit-upgrade, kit-doctor, skill-creator, paper-to-skill.
orchestration
Multi-agent patterns. Fan-out, dispatch, agent policy, browser-eval-loop.
engine
Full-lifecycle autopilots. genesis, gsd, project-rescue, iterate, adhd-workflow-support.
Domain rules
- 01 The same 13 domains apply to every primitive type. Agents, hooks, plugins, skills, commands, and workflows all use this taxonomy. No flat namespaces. No type-specific exceptions.
-
02
There is no
metadomain. Items belonging to the priormetabucket fall intolifecycle,kit,orchestration, orengine— or move to_archive/. -
03
There is no standalone
designorcontentdomain. Marketing-facing design and content live inmarketing/. Product-facing design and content live inproduct/. -
04
There is no
debugdomain. Dev-time debugging primitives live inaudits/. Runtime debugging primitives live indevops/. -
05
The label is
connectors, notintegration. Covers MCPs, API clients, and browser tooling. -
06
_archive/exists at the type root, not inside a domain. Items that aren't reusable primitives go there. They are not deleted.
10 enforceable rules
Each rule is mechanical and validatable. The dictionary closes — no improvising new suffixes, no exception cases.
Format: kebab-case, lowercase, ASCII only
Lowercase letters, digits, and ASCII hyphens. No underscores, no PascalCase, no camelCase, no Unicode characters.
| Accept | code-review |
| Accept | multi-lens-audit |
| Reject | CodeReview |
| Reject | code_review |
Length: ≤ 30 characters
Names exceeding 30 characters are split, renamed, or archived.
| Accept | design-system-architect (24) |
| Accept | multi-lens-audit (16) |
| Reject | audit-followup-persona7-p2-evidence (35) |
| Reject | 2026-03-31-firecrawl-design-experiment-design (45) |
Word form: form follows function
Commands and verb-actions use verb-noun (or single verb). Skills, references, and knowledge bases use noun + suffix (or noun-noun + suffix). Gerunds are banned in every position.
| Accept | commit |
| Accept | deploy-canary |
| Accept | auth-flow-patterns |
| Reject | executing-plans |
| Reject | using-git-worktrees |
| Reject | finishing-a-development-branch |
Suffix dictionary: 12 approved, no improvising
Every name with a suffix uses one of 12 approved values. See the Suffix Dictionary tab for the full list. Banned suffixes (-best-practices, -principles, -fundamentals, -mastery, -pipeline, -builder, -autopilot, -framework) are rejected.
-best-practices, -patterns, -principles, -guide, -gotchas) do roughly the same job. Without a closed dictionary the suffix space multiplies. One suffix per intent forces consistent grouping.Banned prefixes: 5 patterns auto-archive
Names starting with any of these patterns are not primitives. They auto-route to _archive/ for triage.
| Banned | Leading digit · 1a-tribunal-panel · 2-envision · 53-spirit-check |
| Banned | Date stamp · 2026-03-31-creative-director-v2 |
| Banned | Persona code · a1, a8, p4, p6, cross |
| Banned | Release tag · release-1-audit, release-1-complete |
| Banned | Project codename · diverse-meditrack, nexaflow-execution |
Tech stack: package name as-is
When a primitive is about a specific framework or runtime, use the name as it appears in the official ecosystem (npm, pip, etc.).
nextjs, nodejs, nestjs. Hyphenating to next-js looks like an error and breaks search.| Accept | nextjs · nodejs · nestjs · react · bun |
| Reject | next-js · node-js · nest-js · react.js |
Word order: subject first, suffix last
Names sort alphabetically by subject so all primitives for the same subject cluster.
| Accept | angular-patterns · angular-rules · react-patterns · react-rules |
| Reject | patterns-angular · rules-react |
No domain or type prefix in filename
The folder is the domain. Repeating it in the filename is noise. Type prefixes (skill-, hook-, workflow-, agent-, command-, plugin-) are banned unless the primitive is genuinely about that type (e.g. skill-creator creates skills).
skills/code/ doesn't need code- or skill- in the filename. The path already tells you everything. Repetition also breaks if you ever re-domain the primitive.| Accept | skills/code/angular-patterns |
| Accept | hooks/security/scan-secrets |
| Reject | skills/code/code-angular-patterns |
| Reject | hooks/security/security-scan-secrets |
Versioning: frontmatter only
Version lives in version: frontmatter. Old versions move to _archive/{name}-v1/. Active filename always reflects the current version. Variant suffixes (-fast, -mobile) are allowed only when a deliberately different variant coexists with the original.
| Accept | creative-director (with version: 2.0) |
| Accept | _archive/creative-director-v1/ |
| Reject | creative-director-v2 |
| Reject | 2026-03-31-creative-director-v2 |
Plurals: collection vs single action
Plural for collections of items, singular for single actions or fixes.
| Plural | react-patterns · anti-slop-rules · react-native-gotchas |
| Singular | bundle-audit · core-web-vitals-fix |
12 approved suffixes (closed set)
One suffix per intent. Anything not in this table is rejected. The Banned alternatives column lists what each approved suffix replaces.
| Suffix | Intent | Example | Banned alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|
| -patterns | Pattern library | auth-flow-patterns, nodejs-backend-patterns | -principles |
| -rules | Prescriptive rules | anti-slop-rules, angular-rules | -best-practices · -mastery |
| -guide | How-to guide | vercel-monorepo-guide, screenshot-guide | — |
| -decision-tree | Selection helper | framework-decision-tree | — |
| -checklist | Verification list | feature-checklist, deep-dive-checklist | — |
| -audit | Read-only audit primitive | bundle-audit, journey-audit | — |
| -fix | Remediation primitive | core-web-vitals-fix | — |
| -workflow | Pipeline or process | deploy-workflow, bug-fix-workflow | -pipeline |
| -gotchas | Known-issues catalog | react-native-gotchas, windows-gotchas | — |
| -generator | Scaffold creator | dependency-graph-generator | -builder |
| -engine | Full-lifecycle autopilot | genesis-engine, rescue-engine | -autopilot · -framework |
| (none) | Canonical reference | commit, brainstorm, humanize | — |
-patterns, -rules, -checklist, -gotchas. Process → -workflow, -engine, -decision-tree. Single action → -audit, -fix, -generator, or no suffix.
The whole convention, one card
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