Coding Standards

# Coding Standards & Best Practices

Universal coding standards applicable across all projects.

## When to Activate

- Starting a new project or module
- Reviewing code for quality and maintainability
- Refactoring existing code to follow conventions
- Enforcing naming, formatting, or structural consistency
- Setting up linting, formatting, or type-checking rules
- Onboarding new contributors to coding conventions

## Code Quality Principles

### 1. Readability First
- Code is read more than written
- Clear variable and function names
- Self-documenting code preferred over comments
- Consistent formatting

### 2. KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
- Simplest solution that works
- Avoid over-engineering
- No premature optimization
- Easy to understand > clever code

### 3. DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)
- Extract common logic into functions
- Create reusable components
- Share utilities across modules
- Avoid copy-paste programming

### 4. YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It)
- Don't build features before they're needed
- Avoid speculative generality
- Add complexity only when required
- Start simple, refactor when needed

## TypeScript/JavaScript Standards

### Variable Naming

```typescript
// PASS: GOOD: Descriptive names
const marketSearchQuery = 'election'
const isUserAuthenticated = true
const totalRevenue = 1000

// FAIL: BAD: Unclear names
const q = 'election'
const flag = true
const x = 1000
```

### Function Naming