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description: Enforce planning standards before implementation
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# Planning standards

## Planning

- Analyze requests and output a numbered implementation plan before execution.
- Challenge ambiguous or over-engineered requests before implementation.
- Search the project, its dependencies, and the standard library for an existing implementation before writing new code.
- State where the search ran and why each candidate was rejected. Do not assert a search without naming its results.
- Propose the simplest solution that satisfies the requirement before implementing complex patterns.
- Write or update tests as part of every implementation plan.
- Write the test for a behavior before the code that implements it. Confirm visual output after implementing it, not before.
- Run `aitk gov test-order` before shipping a branch. Fix what it names as reaching history ahead of its test.
- Load the `aitk:systematic-debugging` skill before proposing a fix for a failing test, a surfaced bug, or behavior nobody has explained yet, and report it rather than proceeding silently when the skill does not resolve.
- Do not modify code without a confirmed plan.