---
title: "Step 0: The one-paste baseline"
step: 0
status: draft
updated: 2026-07-31
description: "Optional full-package setup: working agreements, verification gates, and the failure lists installed as review passes, in one confirmation-gated paste."
---

Every later step in this guide is independently adoptable, and the whole
guide assumes you'd rather understand a pattern than install it blind.
This step is for the opposite mood: one paste that sets up the baseline
kit, confirming each file with you before it's written.

What it sets up (each explained properly in its own step):

- A **working agreements** section in your `CLAUDE.md`: one-line gates
  distilled from failures that actually happen ([step 1](/guides/coding-agents/working-agreements/)).
- The two core **verification gates**: baseline before fix, small proof
  before long cycle ([step 2](/guides/coding-agents/verification-loop/)).
- The two **failure lists** installed as review passes you can invoke by
  name ([the prose list](/prose-failure-list/), [the workflow
  list](/agent-workflow-failure-list/)).

## The paste

```text
Set up my coding-agent baseline. Work one step at a time, show me every
file before writing it, and wait for my ok between steps.

1. Create (or extend) this project's CLAUDE.md with a section
   "## Working agreements" holding five one-line gates:
   - Baseline before fix: reproduce the bug and show the failing number
     before changing code. A probe that comes back clean on its first
     run is broken until proven otherwise.
   - Small proof before long cycle: before any full build, render, or
     deploy, run the smallest dry run that could falsify the change.
   - Serve, don't describe: if the deliverable can be a running page,
     render, or URL, deliver that, not prose saying it works.
   - No billed calls in tests: stub every metered client; grep for live
     client construction before the first test run.
   - Name forks: when you hit a genuine design fork, stop and present
     the options instead of picking silently.

2. Interview me, one question at a time, about failures that have
   actually bitten me beyond these, and add at most three more gates in
   the same one-line style. Skip anything that hasn't happened to me.

3. If I'm running Claude Code and want the failure lists as invocable
   review passes: clone https://github.com/chronick/lemon-agent and
   copy skills/prose-failure-list and
   skills/agent-workflow-failure-list into ~/.claude/skills/. If the
   repo isn't reachable, skip this and say so plainly.
```

## If you'd rather go manual

Read [step 1](/guides/coding-agents/working-agreements/) and [step
2](/guides/coding-agents/verification-loop/) and make the two edits
yourself: about ten minutes, and you'll know exactly what your agent is
now promising.