# Three documents that keep my AI coding agent honest (free templates + Claude Code skill)

> Source: <https://dev.to/onepersonrd/three-documents-that-keep-my-ai-coding-agent-honest-free-templates-claude-code-skill-63f>
> Published: 2026-10-28 06:06:29+00:00

I run a one-person R&D operation that ships industrial sensing products — analogue boards, microcontroller firmware, PC tools. Most of the typing is done by AI coding agents (mainly Claude Code). They are fast, and for a year they failed in the same four ways:

None of this was fixed by a better model. It was fixed by a process the agent cannot skip. I've generalized it into a small kit and put it on GitHub under MIT: **[ai-rd-process-kit](https://github.com/onepersonrd/ai-rd-process-kit)**.

Before any implementation, the agent writes three documents, and I accept them:

Then the agent works in small checked pieces, updates the documents in the same change that alters the design, and when it fails, **it writes the lesson itself**: situation, cause, prevention. It reads that file at the start of every session.

| % | Means | 
|---|---|
| 0 | Not started | 
| 25 | Started | 
| 50 | Draft complete, not self-checked | 
| 75 | Waiting for review, or under test | 
| 100 | Accepted in review and tests passed | 

Unverified work stays at 75. Where things can be counted, they are counted: `tests passed 38/52 → 73%`.

**"Not found" is not "does not exist."** The agent searched a rulebook for two keywords, found nothing, and reported that no rule applied. The rule existed under different wording. Prevention: questions of the form "is there a rule about X" are answered by reading the relevant chapters, and the report says what was searched and what was not read.

**ERC passed, the netlist had three shorts.** An auto-generated schematic passed the electrical rules check. The netlist showed a rotated protection diode shorting two supply rails, a pull-up routed onto a data line, and a duplicated reference designator. Prevention: after generating a schematic, export the netlist and script-check supply/ground separation, polarity of oriented parts and duplicate designators before layout.

`templates/` — plan, design doc, requirements↔test matrix, lessons-learned (with four real, anonymized examples)`rules/CLAUDE.md.example` — 13 promises for the root of your project`skills/rd-process/SKILL.md` — a Claude Code skill: session start, create the docs, work, test, log, session end
Five-minute setup: copy the templates into `docs/`, put the rules in `CLAUDE.md`, install the skill, and say "plan this". If the agent starts coding before showing you the scope table, the rules aren't loaded.

Not a methodology, not a tool, not a prompt pack. Four Markdown files and a habit. It works with any agent that reads an instruction file; the skill is for Claude Code.

If you try it, I'd like to know which rule your agent broke first. Mine was #4.

*Disclosure: this post and the templates were drafted with an AI assistant and rewritten by me from first-hand use.*