Advanced Workflows and Automation

Your first app is a craft project. Your fifth is a process — and the difference between people who ship occasionally and people who ship steadily is almost entirely that they stopped improvising.

Write your rules down once

Phase 2 introduced the project instructions file. The upgrade is keeping a personal version you paste into every new project: your stack, your preferences, the mistakes you are tired of correcting.

Mine-style examples, adapt freely:

• Keep changes small. Do not restructure files unless I ask.
• Never put secrets in browser code.
• Always handle the empty case and the error case, not just the happy path.
• Ask before adding a dependency.

Every one of those is a lesson from an earlier stage, written down so you never re-learn it.

Checklists beat memory

You will not remember all 24 things a launch needs. Nobody does. That is what the audit is for — and the same principle applies to your own repeated tasks. A five-line "before I deploy" list, kept in the project, is worth more than good intentions.

Automate the boring checks

The rule of thumb: if you have done it by hand three times, automate it. Good early candidates:

• A save point before every big AI change.
• Scanning for secrets before publishing.
• Re-running the audit before a release.
• Refreshing whatever numbers your site displays.

Automation here does not mean anything clever — a script you run, or a scheduled job, is plenty.

Templates

When your third project starts the same way, that is a template. Keep a starter folder with your structure, your instructions file, your ignore-list, and your checklist. Copy it and rename it.

Hours saved, every time, forever.

Know when to stop

Automation is a cost too. A script you maintain forever to save two minutes a month is a bad trade. Automate what you do often and hate doing. Leave the rest alone.

Vibe Coding Workflow Templates has concrete starting points.