Temper

MANDATORY PREPARATION

Invoke /agent-workflow — it contains workflow principles, anti-patterns, and the Context Gathering Protocol. Follow the protocol before proceeding — if no workflow context exists yet, you MUST run /teach-maestro first. Consult the agent-architecture reference in the agent-workflow skill for topology patterns and when multi-agent is justified.

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Pull back from over-engineering. The most common mistake isn't building too little — it's building too much.

Over-Engineering Detection

Signs you've over-engineered:

• Multi-agent for a single-agent problem
• Premature optimization before you have performance data
• Abstraction layers with one implementation
• Configuration for things that never change
• Evaluation loops on non-critical outputs
• Framework before features

The Complexity Test

For each component:

1. Is this solving a problem we actually have? (not "might have")
2. Is this the simplest solution that works?
3. Would removing this break anything? (if not, remove it)
4. Can someone new understand this in 5 minutes? (if not, simplify)

Tempering Strategies

Collapse Unnecessary Agents