rules.md

Technology and Framework Requirements

* You shall write code in Python
* You shall use Python latest and standard package management (uv) for non ROS2 programs
* You shall use ROS2 and colcon builds for ROS2 programs
* You should prefer async/await over threading when there is a choice
* You should look for existing libraries instead of reinventing solutions
* You will always have a shebang line
* The first comment will give the name of the module and in one line say what it is
* The second comment will say "Author: Pito Salas and Claude Code"
* The third comment will say "Open Souce Under MIT license"

Code Structure and Organization

* You shall ensure functions and methods are no longer than 50 lines
* You shall ensure no files have more than about 300 lines
* You shall use classes and put them in separate files
* You shall put data classes in the file where they are constructed
* You shall name files after the class defined in the file
* You shall give classes, methods and functions intention-revealing names but be willing to use obvious abbreviations or truncations to keep identifiers no more than ~ 15 chars
* You shall avoid if/else statements that are nested more than 1 deep. If tempted to do so, look for another design
* You shall not have if statements with more than 3 branches. If tempted to do so, look for another design
* You shall avoid 2 line methods
* You shall avoid 1 line functions and methods
* You shall avoid simple wrappers
* You should look for code duplication and make the code DRY if it makes sense
* You shall avoid functions with more than 3 arguments
* You shall use absolute imports with module aliases rather than relative imports
* You shall put all imports at the top of the file

Code Quality and Best Practices

* You shall write idiomatic Python
* You should not go overboard on error checking
* You shall never have bare except Exception: you shall be specific, and also put something in the alert box
* You shall not assign the result of a function to a variable just to use that variable one time only; you shall use the function call directly
* You shall put a comment with each method or function ONLY if the name of the function is not sufficient by itself
* You should almost always use double quotes; you shall only use single quotes if there is a specific requirement to do so
* You shall undertake multi-step implementation or refactoring in a way that after each step a running program is retained so that testing can be done to ensure progress is on the right track
* You shall not provide default parameters to functions; make the caller provide all required values explicitly
* You shall not code defensively; let exceptions bubble up rather than handling every possible error case
* You shall follow YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It): only add functions, methods, or classes that are explicitly required by current requirements; do not add code for anticipated future needs

CURRENT.md

* Now read CURRENT.md and follow it's instructions