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Solo Developer

Background

A freelance developer juggling 3-4 client projects simultaneously, relying heavily on AI agents for code generation, documentation, and architecture planning. Works alone, ships fast, but struggles with context loss between sessions and across projects.

Goals

  • Eliminate repeated context-setting at the start of every AI session
  • Maintain consistency across sessions (error handling, patterns, naming conventions)
  • Track project state and architectural decisions without heavyweight tooling
  • Get productive with a new agent session in under a minute

Pain Points

  • Must re-explain project context (tech stack, auth flow, client requirements) at every session start
  • Agent approaches differ day to day — no persistent conventions
  • No continuous state tracking between work sessions
  • Architectural decisions made and forgotten — no durable record

How They Use aDNA

Lightweight setup: 10-15 files, 30 minutes to configure. The core value is instant agent orientation:

  • CLAUDE.md captures project identity, tech stack, and conventions — solves 80% of the context problem
  • STATE.md tracks momentum: what was done last session, what’s next, active blockers
  • what/decisions/ captures architectural choices with rationale (why Postgres, why this auth pattern)
  • how/sessions/ creates a lightweight audit trail of agent work

No federation, no multi-agent coordination, no community engagement. Pure Level 0 usage — aDNA as a personal productivity tool.

Self-reference: This vault’s own STATE.md demonstrates the pattern — a solo operator (Stanley) tracking campaign progress across sessions. The “Next Session Prompt” at the bottom is exactly the cold-start accelerator the solo developer needs.

Typical Ontology Extensions

EntityTriadPurpose
(none)—Uses base triad only — CLAUDE.md, STATE.md, decisions, sessions

The solo developer typically does not extend the ontology. The base triad with governance files is sufficient for individual project management.