Build a quick, disposable version — a terminal app or toggleable UI variation — to validate a design or de-risk an unknown, then discard it. The deliverable is the knowledge gained, not the code; keeping the prototype invites it to harden into production by accident.
Applied by (backlinks)
Matt Pocock — Skills for Real Engineers:
- mp-prototype — builds throwaway prototypes for design validation. v1.2.0 shifts the pattern’s last step from discard to archive off-trunk: “throwaway is a constraint on how the code is written, not a promise to destroy it”. The prototype (now a single shareable HTML file on the logic branch) is kept as a primary source on a
prototype/<name>branch out of main, pointed at from the implementation issue.
gstack:
- gstack-design-shotgun — generate disposable AI mockup variants to explore design before committing to code.
pstack:
- pstack-principle-exhaust-the-design-space — build 2-3 competing prototypes and compare side by side before committing.
- pstack-poteto-mode — the Prototype playbook, and a sharper use: when about to ask the human “which approach”, classify the question first. If the answer is a fact you could observe by running something, it is not the human’s to answer — sketch it and let the result decide. Prototyping as a substitute for a blocking question is new here.
- pstack-arena — the variant that does not discard: see pattern-candidate-grafting.
builder-skills:
- builder-visual-plan — UI and product plans open with a wireframe canvas or a live prototype as the review surface, before any production code.
See Also
- pattern-candidate-grafting — the variant that keeps the losers: pstack-arena picks a base and then harvests the non-winners for parts instead of discarding them.
- stage-implement — the stage where this applies.
- pattern-spec-driven-development — turn validated learnings into a spec.