Individual skill
staff-level-elixir
Use this skill when writing, reviewing, or refactoring Elixir, OTP, Ecto, or Phoenix/LiveView code. It corrects the staff-level judgment calls a capable model gets wrong by default — reaching for a GenServer as the universal tool, rescuing instead of letting processes crash, N+1 Ecto access, non-atomic writes, unbounded/linked Task fan-out, atom exhaustion from user input, eager Enum where Stream fits, and calling Repo from the web layer. Applies whenever the work touches process design, error handling, concurrency, data access, or LiveView, even if the user doesn't name them.
skills/.experimental/staff-level-elixir/SKILL.md
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- Yes
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- Yes
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- Observed behavior
- Instructions only
- Last checked
- Nov 5, 2026
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Repository context
- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 221
- Repository last updated
- Aug 15, 2026
- License
- MIT
Observed agent integration: codex
- design Derived category
- operations Derived category
- writing Derived category
- data Derived category
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Browse files
AGENTS.mddoc · 5,472 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 6,466 bytesSKILL.mdcore · 6,466 bytesassets/templates/_template.mddoc · 994 bytesmetadata.jsonasset · 1,300 bytesreferences/_sections.mddoc · 2,107 bytesreferences/conc-async-stream-bounded.mddoc · 1,872 bytesreferences/conc-atom-exhaustion.mddoc · 1,711 bytesreferences/conc-task-supervised-nolink.mddoc · 1,261 bytesreferences/data-functions-over-macros.mddoc · 1,556 bytesreferences/data-iolists-over-concat.mddoc · 1,511 bytesreferences/data-pattern-match-over-conditionals.mddoc · 1,647 bytesreferences/data-pipe-idioms.mddoc · 1,442 bytesreferences/data-stream-vs-enum.mddoc · 1,423 bytesreferences/ecto-atomic-counters.mddoc · 1,438 bytesreferences/ecto-db-constraints-over-validation.mddoc · 1,712 bytesreferences/ecto-multi-for-transactions.mddoc · 1,633 bytesreferences/ecto-preload-n-plus-one.mddoc · 1,419 bytesreferences/ecto-stream-large-sets.mddoc · 1,346 bytesreferences/err-let-it-crash.mddoc · 1,583 bytesreferences/err-tagged-tuples-vs-raise.mddoc · 1,556 bytesreferences/err-with-happy-path.mddoc · 1,661 bytesreferences/otp-ets-for-shared-reads.mddoc · 1,693 bytesreferences/otp-genserver-not-default.mddoc · 1,645 bytesreferences/otp-handle-continue-init.mddoc · 1,308 bytesreferences/otp-supervise-over-manual-restart.mddoc · 1,842 bytesreferences/phx-context-boundary.mddoc · 1,518 bytesreferences/phx-liveview-streams.mddoc · 1,384 bytesreferences/phx-mount-twice-connected.mddoc · 1,324 bytes
Read excerpt
# Staff-Level Elixir
Distilled staff-level judgment for Elixir on the BEAM — the design decisions Elixir, OTP, Ecto, and Phoenix force, and how an experienced engineer settles them, written so an agent applies them while writing or reviewing code. Each rule corrects a specific wrong default; there is no rule for things the model already gets right (syntax, basic idioms, the standard library).
## When to Apply
- Writing or reviewing OTP code — deciding whether something needs a process, and which (GenServer, Task, Agent, ETS, supervisor)
- Handling failure — choosing between tagged tuples, exceptions, `with`, and letting a process crash
- Writing Ecto — queries, associations, transactions, changesets, large result sets
- Building Phoenix controllers and LiveViews — context boundaries, socket state, mount lifecycle
- Running concurrent work — parallel fan-out, fire-and-forget tasks, handling untrusted input
- Any request to make Elixir code more idiomatic, more fault-tolerant, or "staff-level"
## Rule Categories