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observe-before-editing

Observe Before Editing

Stars
3,795
Source
parcadei/Continuous-Claude-v3
Updated
2026-01-26
Slug
parcadei--Continuous-Claude-v3--observe-before-editing
View on GitHubRaw SKILL.md

// install — copy + paste into any project

mkdir -p .claude/skills && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/parcadei/Continuous-Claude-v3/HEAD/.claude/skills/observe-before-editing/SKILL.md -o .claude/skills/observe-before-editing.md

Drops the SKILL.md into .claude/skills/observe-before-editing.md. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any agent that loads SKILL.md files from .claude/skills/.

Observe Before Editing

Before editing code to fix a bug, confirm what the system actually produced.

Pattern

Outputs don't lie. Code might. Check outputs first.

DO

  1. Check if expected directories exist: ls -la .claude/cache/
  2. Check if expected files were created: ls -la .claude/cache/learnings/
  3. Check logs for errors: tail .claude/cache/*.log
  4. Run the failing command manually to see actual error
  5. Only then edit code

DON'T

  • Assume "hook didn't run" without checking outputs
  • Edit code based on what you think should happen
  • Confuse global vs project paths (check both: .claude/ and ~/.claude/)

Source Sessions

  • a541f08a: Token limit error was invisible until manual run revealed it
  • 6a9f2d7a: Looked in wrong cache path (~/.claude/ vs .claude/), assumed hook failure
  • a8bd5cea: Confirmed hook worked by finding output files in project cache
  • 1c21e6c8: Verified Artifact Index indexing by checking DB file exists