smith-standards
Universal coding standards for emoji usage, comments, datetime formatting, and file conventions. Use when writing code, logs, documentation, or any text output. Always active as universal rules for all development.
When & Why to Use This Skill
This Claude skill enforces a comprehensive set of universal coding standards and documentation guidelines to ensure professional consistency across all development outputs. It focuses on eliminating non-functional elements like decorative emojis, promoting self-documenting code over redundant comments, and standardizing technical formats such as ISO 8601 datetimes and file trailing newlines. By acting as a persistent quality guardrail, it helps developers maintain clean, readable, and production-ready codebases and logs.
Use Cases
- Standardizing Code Documentation: Automatically ensuring that technical documentation and logs remain professional by removing decorative emojis and using precise, technical language.
- Enforcing Datetime Consistency: Implementing uniform ISO 8601 timestamps with local timezone offsets across all system logs, reports, and data outputs to prevent time-sync errors.
- Code Quality Maintenance: Promoting the use of self-documenting code structures and descriptive naming conventions while restricting inline comments to complex logic or configuration files.
- Automated File Formatting: Ensuring every source file adheres to strict formatting rules, such as having exactly one trailing newline, before code is committed to version control.
| name | smith-standards |
|---|---|
| description | Universal coding standards for emoji usage, comments, datetime formatting, and file conventions. Use when writing code, logs, documentation, or any text output. Always active as universal rules for all development. |
Universal Coding Standards
- Scope: Universal coding standards (emoji, comments, datetime)
- Load if: Always active (universal rules for all development)
- Prerequisites: @smith-principles/SKILL.md
CRITICAL: Universal Rules (Primacy Zone)
- Decorative emoji in code, logs, or documentation
- Files without exactly one trailing newline
- Self-documenting code over inline comments
- ISO 8601 timestamps with timezone
Universal standards that apply to all code, logs, documentation, and outputs across all languages and contexts.
Universal Code Standards
- NEVER use decorative emoji (for example: x-mark, check mark, warning, memo, celebration, thumbs-up symbols) in code, logs, print statements, error messages, or documentation. Exception: user-facing UI text if explicitly requested. Functional Unicode symbols (→, ±×÷) are allowed. Checkmarks are redundant when followed by descriptive labels.
- NEVER add excessive blank lines between code blocks
- NEVER commit files without exactly one trailing newline
Inline Comments:
- ONLY add inline comments when code intent is not self-evident from naming and structure
- Prefer self-documenting code (clear variable/function names) over inline comments
- Allowed cases: Config files (.env), TODO markers, complex algorithms, non-obvious business logic
File Format:
- ALWAYS have exactly one newline at the end of every file
- ALWAYS use language-appropriate formatters before commits
- ALWAYS use descriptive names following language conventions
DateTime Standards
Timezone: All timestamps MUST use local timezone dynamically
Format: ISO 8601 with timezone: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS±HH:MM
Examples:
- Python:
datetime.now().astimezone().isoformat()(automatically uses local timezone) - JavaScript:
new Date().toISOString()(UTC) ornew Date().toLocaleString('en-CA', {timeZoneName: 'short'})(local with timezone)
Quality Standards
Documentation: Use precise, technical language; maintain consistent terminology; follow these standards in ALL text outputs
Testing: ALWAYS update reports when standards change; maintain test documentation accuracy
Code Reuse: ALWAYS check existing scripts before creating new ones; check debug_scripts/ and language-specific tool directories
- @smith-principles/SKILL.md - Fundamental coding principles
@smith-style/SKILL.md- Path and naming standards- @smith-guidance/SKILL.md - AI agent behavior patterns (always active)
@smith-dev/SKILL.md- Development workflow@smith-tests/SKILL.md- Testing standards@smith-git/SKILL.md- Version control@smith-gh-pr/SKILL.md- Pull request workflows@smith-gh-cli/SKILL.md- GitHub CLI operations
ACTION (Recency Zone)
Before committing:
- No decorative emoji in code/logs
- Exactly one trailing newline
- Self-documenting names over comments
- ISO 8601 timestamps with timezone