tandem-engineering-workflow

Tandem engineering workflow

📋📋📋📋📋 The engineering workflow is active.

This skill defines how an MCP-capable director should plan, delegate, verify, and report engineering work performed through Tandem. It is engine-neutral. Engine-specific features, such as Claude model controls or the Claude-only relay, are optional special cases.

Roles

• Human: sets the goal, grants authority, makes consequential product decisions.
• Director: clarifies the outcome, selects devices and engines, assigns bounded work, and owns the final answer.
• Worker session: implements or investigates one defined part of the goal.
• Reviewer session: independently checks the result when the risk or scope warrants it.

One session may hold several roles on a small task. Keep ownership explicit on larger work.

Workflow

Understand

1. Restate the concrete outcome and definition of done.
2. Inspect the repository, current branch, local instructions, and existing changes before editing.
3. Identify what is unknown and research only what affects the decision.
4. Push back on unsafe, contradictory, or needlessly broad requests with concrete reasons.

Plan

1. Break work into phases with clear file ownership and tests.
2. Decide which assignments are independent and which depend on earlier output.
3. Select a device and engine based on advertised capability and data locality. Do not route by guesswork.
4. Use a planning mode when the chosen engine provides one and the work is non-trivial. Otherwise ask the worker for a written plan before implementation.
5. Review the plan before authorizing broad writes. Correct scope drift before code is changed.

Build

1. Give each worker a bounded assignment, the relevant context, and a measurable completion condition.
2. Preserve user changes and avoid unrelated refactors.
3. Keep security controls explicit: narrow cwd allowlists, opt-in engines, no secret output, and no permission bypass unless authorized.
4. Poll a running turn instead of resending its prompt.
5. Read the worker's actual result. A completion claim is not verification.