git:20260715.5debf23 to git:20260907.ebb8c27

5 added, 5 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: principle-experience-first

description: "Apply when product, UX, or feature-scope tradeoffs come up. Choose user delight over implementation convenience; ship fewer polished features over more rough ones."

user-invocable: false

---

# Experience First

- The product is the experience. Every technical decision either helps or hurts it. When implementation convenience conflicts with user delight, choose delight.

+ When implementation convenience conflicts with user delight, choose delight.

- - Say no to 1,000 things (every feature, control, and option must earn its place)

+ - Every feature, control, and option must be justified

- Ship less, ship better (polished experience with three features beats rough one with ten)

- Prototype before committing (design decisions are cheaper in throwaway HTML than production code)

- - Sweat the details (transitions, alignment, spacing, feedback, error states)

+ - Get the details right (transitions, alignment, spacing, feedback, error states)

- Tighten the core loop (every feature should serve the central workflow or get out of the way)

- The user is whoever consumes the work. For a UI that is the end user. For a library or an internal API it is the colleague who imports it. The engineer who maintains the code next is a user too. Weigh their experience the same way, and explain impact from their seat.

+ The user is whoever consumes the work. For a UI that is the end user. For a library or an internal API it is the colleague who imports it. The engineer who maintains the code next is a user too. Weigh their experience the same way, and explain impact from their perspective.

- Foundations should serve the experience, not the other way around. Foundational thinking governs the *sequence* of work; this principle governs the *target*.

+ Foundations should serve the experience. Foundational thinking governs the *sequence* of work; this principle governs the *target*.