2 posts tagged with "Architecture"

Your architecture is your AI strategy. Every decorator, every naming convention, every file-per-function decision determines whether AI can contribute meaningfully to your codebase — or just generate noise.

The Premise​

Most teams try to adopt AI coding assistants by writing better prompts. Logic Bee took a different approach: redesign the architecture so AI can't get it wrong. One hook per file. Mandatory decorators with machine-readable metadata. Self-registering modules. The result? AI agents that understand the codebase as well as a new team member — on day one.

The Story​

When Logic Bee was a monolithic Express app, AI code generation was unreliable. Functions were tangled across large files. Business logic mixed with routing. Naming was inconsistent. An AI asked to "add a billing function" would generate code that worked in isolation but broke in context.

The refactoring to a decorator-based, one-hook-per-file architecture wasn't about AI. It was about maintainability, testability, and developer experience. But the side effect was transformative: the same codebase that became easier for humans to navigate also became trivially parseable by AI.

The Five Decisions​

1. One Function, One File​

Every hook lives in its own file at a predictable path:

hooks/{library-slug}/{method-slug}/{method-slug}.{library-slug}.hook.ts

Why it matters for AI: When the AI generates a new hook, it never needs to decide where to put the code. The path is deterministic from the library and method names. There's no risk of the AI inserting code into the wrong file or appending to an existing module.

Why it matters for humans: Code reviews are self-contained. git diff shows one function per file. Merge conflicts between developers working on different hooks are eliminated.

2. Self-Describing Decorators​

Every hook wears its identity on its sleeve:

@LogicHook({
  name: 'FinanceBillsCalculateLateFees',
  path: 'finance-bills/calculate-late-fees',
  library: 'finance-bills',
  method: 'calculate-late-fees'
})

Why it matters for AI: The decorator is structured metadata — not a comment, not documentation, but code that the system reads at boot time. AI can scan decorators to understand what a hook does without reading the business logic.

Why it matters for humans: New developers can grep for any hook by name, library, or method. Discovery is instant.

3. Auto-Generated Barrels​

When a new hook is created, barrel files (index.ts) are regenerated automatically. Developers never manually import hooks.

Why it matters for AI: The AI can scaffold a hook, run the barrel generator, and know that the hook is registered — without understanding the module system. No manual import means no forgotten imports.

Why it matters for humans: One less thing to remember. One less source of "it compiles but doesn't run" bugs.

4. Standardized Wrapper Pattern​

Every hook uses the Bob Wrapper: execute() → async (bob) => → try/catch → returnEventResult.

public static execute() {
  return async (bob: BobRequest<T>) => {
    let ok = true, error: any = null, data
    try {
      // business logic
    } catch (err) { error = err; ok = false }
    return returnEventResult(bob, { ok, error, data })
  }
}

Why it matters for AI: The wrapper is a rigid template. AI fills in the business logic between START_CODE_LOGIC and END_CODE_LOGIC. The structural code around it is identical across hundreds of hooks — which means the AI never gets it wrong.

Why it matters for humans: Every hook reads the same way. Error handling is guaranteed. The cognitive load of reading unfamiliar code drops to near zero.

5. Machine-Readable Skills​

Business rules, conventions, and patterns are encoded in .agents/skills/ — not in wiki pages, Slack threads, or tribal knowledge.

Why it matters for AI: Skills are loaded at prompt time. The AI doesn't need to infer conventions from code samples — it reads the rules directly.

Why it matters for humans: Skills are versioned with the codebase. When conventions change, the skill files update, and the AI immediately adapts.

Measuring the Impact​

Before the architecture refactoring:

What Other Teams Can Learn​

You don't need to use Logic Bee's exact architecture to make your codebase AI-ready. But these principles apply universally:

Principle 1: Predictable File Locations​

If your AI has to guess where a file goes, it will guess wrong 30% of the time. A convention that maps names to paths eliminates this entirely.

Principle 2: Structured Metadata Over Comments​

Comments are for humans. Decorators (or annotations, or frontmatter) are for machines AND humans. Use structured metadata for anything the AI needs to discover.

Principle 3: One Unit of Logic Per File​

The smaller the blast radius of a change, the safer AI-generated code becomes. A wrong line in a 40-line file is easy to catch. A wrong line in a 400-line file is not.

Principle 4: Rigid Structural Templates​

The more of your code that's identical across instances, the less the AI can get wrong. Boilerplate isn't the enemy — inconsistent boilerplate is.

Principle 5: Encode Conventions, Don't Assume Them​

If a convention lives only in your head, the AI doesn't know it. If it lives in a skill file, the AI follows it automatically.

The Takeaway​

AI-ready architecture isn't a separate initiative. It's good architecture: modular, predictable, self-describing, and convention-driven. The same decisions that make your codebase maintainable for a team of ten developers make it navigable for AI agents.

Design for the junior developer who just joined your team. The AI is that developer — permanently.

Skills aren't documentation. They're executable contracts — structured knowledge files that tell the AI exactly how your codebase works. Invest two hours writing a skill file, save twenty hours of correcting AI output.

The Premise​

Most teams treat AI assistants like search engines: ask a question, get an answer, fix what's wrong. But Logic Bee takes a different approach. Instead of hoping the AI figures out how the code works, we tell it — through .agents/skills/ files that serve as machine-readable contracts between the developer and the AI.

The Story​

Before skill files, every AI prompt required extensive context: "By the way, we use naoUtils.mathChain() for math, and naoDateTime() for dates, and errors should use naoFormatErrorById(), and the first thing in the try block should be eventOptions..."

One developer spent 15 minutes adding context to every prompt. Then they extracted it into a skill file — once. Now every AI interaction in the codebase automatically follows those conventions without any prompt engineering.

The return on investment was immediate: fewer review cycles, fewer rejected PRs, and dramatically fewer convention violations in AI-generated code.

What a Skill File Looks Like​

# SKILL.md — hook-code-style

---
name: hook-code-style
description: Coding rules, naming patterns, and structural conventions for Logic Bee hooks
---

## Hard Rules (violations = merge blockers)

1. `ok` and `data` must be assigned before `returnEventResult`
2. Every `.flowQuery()` must include `.user(bob.flowUser)`
3. Every write operation must pass `bob.dbSession()`
...

## Soft Conventions (violations = code review comments)

1. `eventOptions` is the first declaration in the try block
2. Use arrow comments: `// -->Get:`, `// -->Set:`
3. Use `naoUtils.mathChain()` for all arithmetic
...

The skill is just a markdown file. But it transforms AI behavior from "best guess" to "informed generation."

What Makes a Good Skill​

1. Be Prescriptive, Not Descriptive​

❌ "We usually try to use mathChain for calculations"
✅ "ALWAYS use naoUtils.mathChain() for arithmetic. Raw +, -, *, / operators 
    on financial values are a hard rule violation."

2. Include Examples​

Every rule should have a ✅ correct and ❌ incorrect code example. AI learns better from contrast.

3. Separate Hard and Soft Rules​

The distinction matters. Hard rules should block generation. Soft rules should trigger warnings.

4. Keep It Focused​

One skill per concern. hook-code-style covers coding patterns. flow-query covers database access. Don't mix them.

5. Document the Edge Cases​

The 80% cases are obvious. Skills earn their ROI on the 20% that trips up AI:

"When a hook calls bob.runAction(), ALWAYS check the .ok property of the 
result before continuing. AI tends to assume sub-requests always succeed."

The Skill Ecosystem​

Logic Bee maintains a curated set of skills:

Each skill is a contract: "If you follow these rules, the generated code will be correct."

Measuring ROI​

Before and after skill files:

Writing Your First Skill​

Start here:

1. Pick your biggest pain point — what does the AI consistently get wrong?
2. Write the rule — prescriptive, with examples
3. Save it to .agents/skills/your-skill-name/SKILL.md
4. Test it — prompt the AI to use the skill and check the output
5. Iterate — add rules as you find new patterns the AI misses

The Takeaway​

Skills are the highest-leverage investment you can make in AI-assisted development. They turn tribal knowledge into machine-readable contracts. The developer's job isn't to correct AI output — it's to define the rules that make correction unnecessary.

Write the contract once. Get correct code forever.