The Common Patterns
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The Common Patterns
The skill includes a library of recurring incident patterns with their standard fixes:
Premature action — Claude took action before explicit approval. Fix: add an approval gate to the relevant skill. The template:
## Approval Gate Template
Before [ACTION]:
1. Show user exactly what will happen
2. Ask: "Ready to [action]? (yes/no)"
3. Wait for explicit "yes" or "proceed"
4. Only then execute
Sequence error — steps were executed in wrong order. Fix: encode the sequence in the skill with numbered steps and explicit dependency chain.
Missing validation — bad data passed through without a check. Fix: add validation step to skill or create a pre-flight check.
Context carryover — assumptions from a prior session caused the issue. Fix: add explicit context verification at task start.
Scope creep — Claude did more than requested and caused side effects. Fix: add clarifying questions before expanding scope.