---
description: Slop-mop development protocol — gradient descent for repo health
alwaysApply: true
---

## Slop-mop — your development protocol

Slop-mop (`sm`) is a gradient descent tool for this repository. It treats common LLM weaknesses — sloppy formatting, dead code, stale docs, untested changes — as adversarial patterns that cause accidental repo rot. Rather than leaving you to figure out what to validate and when, sm provides greased rails: a fast, repeatable development loop that tells you exactly what to do next.

**This is your procedural cornerstone.** Follow the swab/scour/buff loop and focus on writing great code.

| Verb | What it does | When to run it |
|------|-------------|----------------|
| `sm swab` | Fast iterative feedback — catches drift and auto-fixes what it can | After every meaningful code change (run early, run often) |
| `sm scour` | Comprehensive pre-PR sweep — surfaces everything before it compounds | Before opening or updating a pull request |
| `sm buff` | Post-PR triage — digests CI results and review feedback into actionable steps | After CI completes or review feedback lands |

### The loop
1. **Write code → `sm swab` → fix → repeat.** This is gradient descent — each pass reduces entropy. Keep running until clean.
2. **Before PR → `sm scour`.** One comprehensive pass to catch anything swab missed.
3. **After CI/review → `sm buff <PR_NUMBER>`.** Converts raw feedback into a concrete remediation plan.

### Tooling preference
- If MCP tools `sm_swab`, `sm_scour`, `sm_buff` are available (e.g. via a configured MCP server), prefer calling those tools.
- Otherwise, run the CLI commands directly from the project root.

### Safety
- Never bypass, disable, or silence a failing check — that's how repo rot starts.
- If output is large, summarize and cite the most actionable items first.