Anti-Patterns

NEVER name branches with sequence numbers

WHY: Sequence names (wave-1, phase-2, part-1) become meaningless after any rebase or reorder. A reviewer cannot determine scope without reading the full diff.

# BAD
feature/PROJ-123-wave-1
feature/PROJ-123-phase-2

# GOOD
feature/PROJ-123-remove-cdk-glue-table
feature/PROJ-123-add-eligibility-handler

Consequence: Future git blame and bisect queries return useless results. Reviewers rubber-stamp because they cannot build a mental model from the branch name.

NEVER create branches or cherry-pick before the user approves the grouping

WHY: Grouping decisions require domain knowledge the agent does not have. A misassigned commit means deleting and recreating branches.

Consequence: Wasted cycles cleaning up wrong branches; cherry-pick conflicts introduced by reordering commits incorrectly.

NEVER split commits that share a single failing test

WHY: If PR 1 removes a handler and PR 2 adds its replacement, the stack has a broken intermediate state. CI fails on PR 1 and blocks the merge queue.

# BAD — handler removed in PR 1, replacement added in PR 2
# PR 1 alone: tests fail on missing handler

# GOOD — removal and replacement travel together in one PR

Consequence: The stacked PR approach collapses — each PR must be independently green before the next can merge.

NEVER leave cherry-pick conflicts unresolved

WHY: A branch with conflicts is not buildable. The user discovers this only when CI runs.

Consequence: The entire decomposition must restart. Partial branches pollute the remote.

NEVER write MR descriptions as file lists or commit logs

WHY: A reviewer can read the diff. A file list adds zero information. The What/Why format gives context a reviewer without prior knowledge needs.

# BAD
- Updated auth-stack.ts
- Added auth-role.ts
- Modified session.ts

# GOOD
**What:** Provisions the CDK stack and IAM role that the new auth service requires.
**Why:** Without dedicated infrastructure, the service cannot deploy to any environment.

Consequence: Reviewers have no context for why the change exists and are more likely to miss architectural issues.