Guide: GDE-009
Status: Current
Relates to: STD-004, STD-007, STD-009, STD-011
The Focus AI
2026-07-25
Verified 2026-07-25
Technology defaults
This is a guide: explanation, walkthrough and reference implementation. It contains no clauses and binds nothing (STD-001 §4). The rules in this area are STD-004, STD-007, STD-009, STD-011; where this
document and a standard disagree, the standard is the authority.
When a guide turns out to contain a rule, the rule moves to a standard where it can be cited and checked, and the guide keeps the explanation.
This file used to carry the tooling rules. Those are now STD-004 (tooling and tasks) and STD-011 (skills), where they can be cited and checked. What remains here is the set of default technology choices, which are preferences rather than requirements and have not been decided in enough detail to be clauses.
Unless a project states otherwise:
- TypeScript and pnpm. Avoid a build step where the runtime allows it; prefer commands that run TypeScript directly.
- Neon / Postgres as the database. Prefer Neon over Supabase for new work unless a client has already standardised on something else — document the exception in the project's
AGENTS.md. - Clerk for authentication. The rules are
STD-009; the setup walkthrough isbest-practices/GDE-002-clerk.md.
Not yet decided
These are named in the gap register (reports/NOTE-005-2026-07-25-standards-gap-register.md) as needing a decision before they can be written as standards:
- Module layout and error-handling conventions for TypeScript projects.
- What "avoid a build step" means in practice, and when it does not apply.
- Migrations, schema conventions, and connection handling for Postgres.