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AgentCompany/builtin-skills/software-engineer/clean-code/references/name-avoid-disinformation.md
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ZacharyZhang-NY e74dafcd36 Silence render-disposed spam, unbreak bundled skills, drop board wake
Three independently ugly bugs that all fed the same log flood:

* Electron's `WebFrameMain.send` writes every "Render frame was disposed"
  to stderr via `console.error`. When the worker fans a second
  agent-event past a reloading renderer, we produced thousands of
  identical lines and stalled the main loop on stderr I/O. Added a
  `mainFrame.detached` guard so the send is short-circuited before
  Electron's own catch block fires, and installed a targeted filter in
  `suppress-warnings.ts` (now actually imported from the entry point)
  so the specific `console.error("Error sending from webFrameMain:"…)`
  noise never reaches the terminal. Any other payload still surfaces.

* `dispatchAgentMessage` accepted the human-reader sentinel as a wake
  target when an agent replied to `__board__` — `wakeAgentIfPossible`
  then called `db.getAgent("__board__")`, threw, and the dispatcher
  kept repeating on every send. Strip `HUMAN_SENDER_ID` at
  `resolveMessageWakeTargets`, and keep a defense-in-depth guard in the
  heartbeat so a stray caller (future automation fan-out) cannot
  reintroduce the crash.

* Pi's skills loader rejects any SKILL.md whose frontmatter `name`
  diverges from its parent directory. The four bundled `my-writing-style`
  copies declared `name: writing-style-skill`, so every install emitted
  a warning and dropped the skill. They also lived as orphan gitlinks
  (mode 160000 without .gitmodules), and the global `*.md` gitignore
  hid every other SKILL.md from version control. Fixed the frontmatter
  to match the dir, converted the dangling submodules to plain trees,
  and allowlisted `builtin-skills/**/*.md` so a fresh clone carries the
  catalogue instead of silently losing it.
2026-04-20 08:13:48 -04:00

1.2 KiB

title, impact, impactDescription, tags
title impact impactDescription tags
Avoid Disinformation in Names CRITICAL prevents incorrect mental models name, disinformation, misleading, types

Avoid Disinformation in Names

Avoid names that encode false information. Do not refer to a grouping as a "List" unless it is actually a List. Avoid names that vary in small ways that are hard to distinguish.

Incorrect (misleading type information):

// Not actually a List, it's a Map
private Map<String, Account> accountList;

// These look almost identical - easy to confuse
private String XYZControllerForEfficientHandlingOfStrings;
private String XYZControllerForEfficientStorageOfStrings;

// Lowercase L looks like 1, uppercase O looks like 0
int a = l;
if (O == l)
    a = O1;

Correct (accurate and distinguishable):

// Accurately describes the data structure
private Map<String, Account> accountsByName;

// Clearly distinguishable names
private String stringProcessingController;
private String stringStorageController;

// Clear variable names
int result = leftValue;
if (originalValue == leftValue)
    result = outputValue;

Reference: Clean Code, Chapter 2: Meaningful Names