# Repository Exploration

## Purpose

Rapidly build accurate context before implementation, debugging, or planning by identifying the right files, flows, conventions, and constraints in the repository.

## When to use

- Starting in an unfamiliar repository
- Locating the right implementation area for a request
- Understanding current architecture before proposing changes
- Reducing ambiguity in a vague task

## Inputs to gather

- Repository layout, entrypoints, and key modules
- Build, test, and dependency configuration
- Existing patterns for similar features or workflows
- Any local instructions, docs, or conventions already in the repo

## How to work

- Start broad, then narrow quickly to the files and flows relevant to the task.
- Favor authoritative sources in the repo such as configs, types, interfaces, docs, and existing implementations.
- Identify where decisions are already made by the codebase so you do not reinvent them.
- Summarize findings in terms of how they affect the next action.
- Stop exploring once the path to execution is clear enough.

## Output expectations

- Concise map of the relevant code paths and conventions
- Recommended starting points for changes or further investigation
- Key unknowns that still require validation

## Quality checklist

- Exploration answers practical implementation questions rather than producing generic architecture prose.
- Findings are tied to concrete files, modules, or workflows.
- Enough context is gathered to act confidently without over-reading the entire repo.

## Handoff notes

- Mention the most relevant files, commands, and repo conventions discovered.
- Flag ambiguous areas where multiple plausible implementation paths exist.