Sidecar — Prompts
Sidecar ships 17 SKILL.md files for its own development and 1 AGENTS.md file. The skills guide AI agents contributing to Sidecar itself, not coding practices for end users.
Excerpt 1: AGENTS.md — TD Task Mandate (Iron Law)
# Agents: Mandatory: use td usage --new-session to see open work and view tasks / epics.
# Agents: Mandatory if the human does not provide an existing task for the work you've been asked to start,
create a task or tasks with td first and use td to track progress.
Prompting technique: Iron-law mandate — the word "Mandatory" appears twice in prominent position. Requires agents to use TD for task tracking before and during any work. This is a behavioral constraint, not a guideline.
Excerpt 2: .claude/skills/create-theme/SKILL.md — Configuration Guide
---
name: create-theme
description: >
Create custom color themes for Sidecar, including base theme selection,
color overrides, gradient borders, tab styles, per-project themes,
community themes, and programmatic theme registration. Use when creating
or modifying themes, adjusting UI appearance, or debugging color/style
issues. See references/palette-reference.md for the full color palette
with all keys and per-theme values.
---
# Create Theme
## Configuration Location
Themes are configured in `~/.config/sidecar/config.json`:
{
"ui": {
"theme": {
"name": "default",
"overrides": {
"primary": "#FF5500"
}
}
}
}
Prompting technique: YAML frontmatter + structured how-to — auto-activation skill (description says "Use when creating or modifying themes") with configuration examples. Standard Claude Code skill pattern.
Excerpt 3: AGENTS.md — Architecture Constraints
## Plugin View Rendering
**Critical: Always constrain plugin output height.** The app's header/footer are always visible -
plugins must not exceed their allocated height or the header will scroll off-screen.
In View(width, height int):
1. Store dimensions: p.width, p.height = width, height
2. Calculate internal layout respecting height
3. Never rely on the app to truncate - it wraps with Height() but edge cases cause rendering bugs
This bug manifests as "top bar disappears" after state transitions.
Prompting technique: Bug-prevention rule with visual symptom — describes not just what to do but what failure looks like if you don't ("top bar disappears"). Excellent specificity for agent-contributors working on UI code.