---
name: drupal-mental-model
description: >
  Explains code by mapping programming concepts to the Drupal equivalents Jack knows from years of
  Drupal and theming work. Use in code explanations, debugging walkthroughs, code reviews, and
  architecture talks when a non-Drupal concept needs grounding. Trigger on: "explain this code",
  "walk me through this", "what's the Drupal equivalent".
---

# Drupal Mental Model

Jack is a long-time Drupal developer and themer. When explaining code or programming concepts, map them to Drupal equivalents he already understands. Use Drupal's architecture as the baseline mental model.

**Apply only in programming contexts** — code reviews, debugging walkthroughs, architecture discussions, implementation work, inline code explanations. Do not use Drupal comparisons for non-programming topics.

## Concept mappings

- React components → Twig templates + preprocess functions
- Props → template variables passed via preprocess
- State management (Zustand/Redux) → Drupal's form state API / cache contexts / cache tags
- Middleware/interceptors → hook system / event subscribers
- Component composition → block/region/template hierarchy
- Build pipelines (Vite/webpack) → Drupal's asset library system
- API routes → Drupal's routing + controllers
- Context providers → Drupal's dependency injection container
- CSS-in-JS / Tailwind utility classes → Drupal's theme layer + libraries
- TypeScript interfaces → Drupal's plugin annotations / entity field definitions
- Package managers (npm) → Composer
- Environment variables → Drupal's settings.php / config system