Mastermind Handoff
Write a concise handoff so work survives a context reset or a teammate/next-session takeover — what's done, what's next, key decisions and why, where things live, and the gotchas. Use before a /clear on a long task, when pausing, or when handing off. A summary, not a context dump.
Mastermind Tdd
Test-first loop — write a failing test, make it pass with the minimum, then refactor while green. Use for logic with clear inputs/outputs, for bug fixes (write the failing repro first), or when you want tests to pressure the design. Skip for throwaway spikes and pure-visual work.
Mastermind Learn
Get up to speed FAST on the stack, library, or field a task needs — before building. Detects the project's real stack, maps the field skill-tree (roadmap.sh), reads the primary docs for what the task touches, and returns a working understanding to current standards. Use for unfamiliar or fast-moving tech, or a new codebase. Distinct from mastermind-levelup (durable knowledge-base updates) — this…
Mastermind Debug
Structured six-phase debugging for a hard bug — reproduce, localize, hypothesize, test the hypothesis, fix the root cause, guard against regression. Use when a bug isn't obvious, resists a quick fix, or keeps coming back. Enforces evidence over guessing.
Mastermind Levelup
Level MasterMind up — capture lessons from recent work into the active field pack, refresh the field's best-practice curriculum against the live ecosystem, or bootstrap a whole new field pack. Invoke after a review/correction, periodically to refresh standards, or when switching MasterMind to a new field.
Mastermind Spec
Turn a fuzzy request into a crisp, buildable spec before coding — problem, in/out scope, interfaces, acceptance criteria, and edge cases. Use when the ask is ambiguous, spans multiple files, or you'll hand it off to another session. Skip for a clear one-line change.
Mastermind Prototype
Build a fast, throwaway spike to learn — validate a risky assumption or an unclear approach quickly, then rebuild it properly. Use when the right design is genuinely unknown and reality will teach you faster than planning. Explicitly throwaway — the spike does not ship.
Mastermind Grill
Before building on an unfamiliar tool, API, or library, interrogate your own understanding against its real docs/source — list your assumptions, verify each, surface the unknowns. Use for a new dependency, a tricky API, or whenever "I think it works like…" is load-bearing. Prevents confident-but-wrong builds.
Mastermind Verify
Confirm a change actually works by exercising it end-to-end and observing real behavior — the manual-QA counterpart to mastermind-tdd, no persistent test suite required. Use after finishing a task/feature to prove it works before calling it done, or when the project doesn't do automated tests. Skip when a test suite already covers the change (run that) or the diff has no runtime surface (docs, co…
Mastermind Domain Model
Build or sharpen a project's domain glossary — the canonical terms, their definitions, and resolved naming ambiguities — so code and conversation share one vocabulary. Use at the start of a non-trivial project or feature, or when naming feels muddled or two words mean the same thing.
Mastermind Build
The flagship MasterMind build loop — take a feature/change from intent to shipped, the genius way, end to end. Orchestrates design → plan → implement-to-rigor → verify → adversarial review → capture-lessons. Use for any non-trivial implementation task where quality matters. For a one-line diff, skip this and just do it.
Mastermind Prompt
Turn a vague or rushed request into a sharp, token-efficient, AI-ready prompt — so the model builds what the user actually wants on the first try. Use when the user asks to "optimize / improve / fix my prompt", when a request is fuzzy and they want help expressing it to an AI, or before firing a big/expensive task off a thin prompt. This is prompt-for-an-AI optimization, not code optimization (th…