Varinomics Coding Standards

The single source of truth for how code is written and reviewed across every Varinomics product. One repository, consumed two ways: read directly by people, and loaded by LLM coding agents (Claude Code and compatible tools) as a plugin. Keeping the rules in one versioned place is what stops each product from drifting into its own dialect.

The standards are split by concern: how to write (the coding-style guideline and its LLM addendum), what to critique (the review scope), and how to carry a change over time without it drifting (change governance).

The standards

• varinomics_coding_style_guideline.md - the baseline rules: naming, structure, formatting, and C++/C-API conventions. Start here.
• varinomics_coding_style_llm_addendum.md - house-style formatting judgment layered on top of the baseline (alignment, wrapping, visual-table patterns). Where it conflicts with the guideline, the addendum wins.
• varinomics_review_scope.md - what a reviewer must and must not flag. Draws the line between baseline quality (always in scope) and elective features (in scope only when the project has adopted them), and sets when missing test coverage is a real finding versus correct-by-default.
• varinomics_change_governance.md - rules for any change that spans more than one commit: migrations, refactors, multi-step features. Keeps them from accumulating duplicate code paths, dead code, silent fallbacks, premature test oracles, and deferred-then-forgotten work.
• varinomics_review_planning_anti_patterns.md - a non-blocking diagnostic guide for recognizing when reviewer volume, process evidence, or plan growth has displaced engineering judgment.
• varinomics_llm_tooling_windows.md - Windows command-invocation notes for LLM agents and automated tooling.
• tools/ - the shared style-enforcement scripts and the canonical style pipeline.

Using it as a plugin

This repository is a Claude Code and Codex plugin, so an agent can load the standards without copying them into each product repository. For Claude Code, install it straight from GitHub:

/plugin marketplace add Varinomics/varinomics-standards
/plugin install varinomics-standards@varinomics-standards

For Codex:

codex plugin marketplace add Varinomics/varinomics-standards
codex plugin add varinomics-standards@varinomics-standards

Claude Code adds:

• varinomics-reviewer (agent) - reviews a diff, PR, branch, or file against the standards, calibrated by the review scope so it flags baseline-quality problems without demanding elective features the project never took on. Dispatch it when you want a standards-aware review.

Both Claude Code and Codex add:

• varinomics-change-governance (skill) - applies the compact implementation, planning, and review discipline, then loads the detailed coding, governance, and review-scope rules when the work calls for them.

The canonical documents above remain authoritative. The skill carries only a compact operational kernel and routes agents to those documents when their scope applies.

Always-on engineering discipline

The plugin injects the compact Varinomics discipline at session startup, resume, clear, and compaction, and injects it again when a subagent starts. This keeps product-first implementation, planning, and review active without loading detailed rationale until the task needs it.

The hooks require Node.js on PATH. Codex requires new or changed hooks to be reviewed and trusted through /hooks; until they are trusted, Codex skips them. Disabling the plugin or its hooks disables the always-on behavior while leaving the canonical documents available for direct use.

Style enforcement tools

tools/ holds the style checkers and style_pipeline.py, which declares the canonical order the tools run in. With --write, the pipeline checks each rule first, applies its fixer only to a confirmed failure, verifies that rule, and finishes with a complete read-only sweep after any fixer ran. A tree that is already clean is therefore left unchanged.

Run it from a product repository root:

python C:\plms\varinomics\varinomics-standards\tools\style_pipeline.py --write

Or pass an explicit product root:

python C:\plms\varinomics\varinomics-standards\tools\style_pipeline.py --root C:\plms\varinomics\galanthus --write

More about Varinomics: https://varinomics.com