Make It Work, Make It Right, Make It Fast¶

Sequence development through correctness, design quality, and measured optimization.

Canonical interpretation¶

Establish correct behavior, improve structure, then optimize verified bottlenecks.

Purpose¶

Sequence development through correctness, design quality, and measured optimization.

Apply when¶

The code must be understood and changed by people other than its author.
A simpler implementation satisfies the current verified requirements.

This does not mean¶

Do not ship unsafe or unmaintainable code as merely “working.”
Do not postpone known performance constraints that shape the architecture.

Trade-offs¶

Local simplicity can conflict with extensibility, reuse, or performance requirements.
Reducing visible code can increase hidden behavior; clarity is more important than terseness.

Conflicts with canonical entries¶

None recorded.

Broader policy tensions¶

hard-real-time-constraints

Reinforces canonical entries¶

measure-dont-guess
premature-optimization

Supports broader concerns¶

None recorded.

Core Skill ownership¶

Primary owner: performance-and-resources

Positive example¶

Implement a correct parser, add tests, then profile large files.

Counterexample¶

Micro-optimize an unverified algorithm before its behavior is defined.

Guidance for AI models¶

Apply this guidance only after considering the active project profile, constraints, and architecture authority.
State the concrete design consequence instead of citing the principle name as sufficient justification.

Editorial note¶

This page is generated from the canonical YAML entry. Edit principles/entries/make-it-work-right-fast.yaml and regenerate the compendium instead of editing this file directly.