Principles

Compose first. Replace cleanly. Keep only what differs. Built for agents.

1. Agent-first, the same for people

   Built for coding agents first: structured results, typed recovery, a small context. People use the same CLI and files, with the same results.

2. Replaceable, not just extensible

   Your application depends on capabilities, never on a particular implementation. Every default can be swapped out cleanly.

3. Customization is ordinary Go

   A replacement is a Go package with a constructor. No plugin API, base class or registration to learn.

4. Zero lines to a working backend

   The goal: a production backend composed entirely from dependencies, before you write any code.

5. Your repository holds only what differs

   Generic capabilities stay in dependencies and composition. Nothing is copied into your repository by a scaffold.

How the design keeps those promises

1. 01

   Agent-first, developer-unified

   Built first for Agents, with one interface for everyone. Behavior never depends on who calls.

2. 02

   Human-observable

   Every decision can be recovered from Go, YAML, generated files and Git diffs.

3. 03

   Structured facts first

   Machine-readable results come first; human output is a view of the same facts.

4. 04

   Authority comes from intent

   Being an Agent grants nothing. Comments and logs are content, not instructions.

5. 05

   Minimal cognitive load

   Start with Go, a plystra.yaml and one Interface. Learn the rest when it is needed.

6. 06

   No complexity cliff

   Small and large Projects use the same model, all the way up.

7. 07

   Ordinary Go first

   Packages, constructors and method calls. An abstraction only where Go cannot do the job.

8. 08

   Static and deterministic assembly

   One finite pipeline. After Freeze, nothing can change the graph.

9. 09

   Explicit control flow

   Generated proxies govern calls but never hide what happens next.

10. 10

    Automate aggressively, explain everything

    The CLI derives what it can, and every result has a stable explanation.

11. 11

    No abstraction without demonstrated pressure

    Nothing speculative. New concepts must prove repeated, concrete need.