Project Principles

by vm0-ai

Project Principles is a Quality skill for Claude Code, published by vm0-ai in vm0.

1.2K stars69 forkson vm0-ai/vm0Added 2026/08/20Repository updated 2026/08/20

View source on GitHub Download repo ZIP

agentic-workflowai-agentai-runtimeai-sandboxclaude-codedev-toolssandbox

Install in seconds

Install Project Principles

Copy Project Principles into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0/tree/main/.claude/skills/project-principles ~/.claude/skills/project-principles

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/vm0-ai/vm0.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: .claude/skills/project-principles/SKILL.md in vm0-ai/vm0
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/project-principles
Collection: One of 9 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: Quality — 1354 skills

What Project Principles does

Project Principles defines mandatory code quality and architectural standards for the vm0 project, including YAGNI, strict TypeScript checking, avoiding defensive programming, and zero lint violations. Use it before and during development to keep the codebase simple and maintainable.

Project Principles is cataloged under Quality on DirSkills. Project Principles comes from a repository tagged agentic-workflow, ai-agent, ai-runtime, ai-sandbox and claude-code.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Start with the simplest solution that works
Avoid premature abstractions
Delete unused code aggressively
No "just in case" features

When coding: Ask "Do we need this NOW?" If not, don't add it.

→ For detailed guidelines and examples, read yagni.md

2. Avoid Defensive Programming

Let exceptions propagate naturally. Don't wrap everything in try/catch.

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Project Principles

What else does vm0-ai publish alongside Project Principles?
Project Principles is one of 9 skills that DirSkills catalogs from vm0-ai/vm0, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include CCState Patterns and Best Practices, CLI Design and Code Quality. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Project Principles does, and is maintained by vm0-ai in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the vm0-ai/vm0 page.
How does Project Principles compare to other Quality skills?
Project Principles ranks #757 by stars among the 1354 Quality skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Benchmark, Benchmark Optimization Loop and API Design Patterns. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Project Principles against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.