demand-first-review

# Demand-First Review ## Overview In engineering, the first-principles starting point is the **demand** (the requirement). The biggest waste in review is providing high-quality polish suggestions for something that should not exist. First audit whether the demand is real (**consumer archaeology**); only review the implementation of what survives. **Iron ordering** (the first three steps of Musk's five-step algorithm): question the requirements → delete → only then simplify/optimize. Reversing the order = optimizing something that should not exist. ## Consumer Archaeology (core workflow) For every newly added API / channel / parameter / type / field: 1. **List consumers**: trace ALL real call sites across branches and repos (`git grep` including feature branches). Do not trust the PR description. 2. **Measure consumption**: for each consumer, check **which part of the return value / capability it actually reads**. Consumer count ≠ consumption; a consumer that only reads one boolean consumes zero of an error taxonomy. Real consumption = the real size of the demand. 3. **Judge pseudo-demand** — two checks, both required: - **Zero consumption** → pseudo-demand; - **Non-zero consumption but policy**: does this dimension move a judgment the consumer could compute in one line into the contract (e.g. an `expectedKind` param vs. "read `kind` and compare")? Contracts carry facts; policy inlines back into consumers — **delete even when it has real readers**. Either hit →...