Context-Driven Development
Guide for implementing and maintaining context as a managed artifact alongside code, enabling consistent AI interactions and team alignment through structured project documentation.
When to Use This Skill
- Setting up new projects with Conductor
- Understanding the relationship between context artifacts
- Maintaining consistency across AI-assisted development sessions
- Onboarding team members to an existing Conductor project
- Deciding when to update context documents
- Managing greenfield vs brownfield project contexts
Detailed patterns and worked examples
Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.
Best Practices
- Read context first: Always read relevant artifacts before starting work
- Small updates: Make incremental context changes, not massive rewrites
- Link decisions: Reference context when making implementation choices
- Version context: Commit context changes alongside code changes
- Review context: Include context artifact reviews in code reviews
- Validate regularly: Run context validation checklist before major work
- Communicate changes: Notify team when context artifacts change significantly
- Preserve history: Use git to track context evolution over time
- Question staleness: If context feels wrong, investigate and update
- Keep it actionable: Every context item should inform a decision or behavior
