Zig

1. Classify the task first

Sort the task into one or more of these buckets:

• language and typing
• enums, tagged unions, and control flow
• allocators, containers, and ownership
• strings, slices, pointers, and alignment
• std modules such as mem, fmt, json, testing, and Random
• std.fs, std.Io, std.process, std.net, and std.posix
• build.zig or package/import wiring
• C interop or cross-platform OS work

2. Load only the matching reference

• Read references/version-policy.md first when the target Zig version is unclear.
• Read references/language-core.md for typing, enums, tagged unions, control flow, comptime, and builtin usage.
• Read references/stdlib-and-containers.md for allocators, ArrayList, maps, enum collections, strings, formatting, JSON, and testing helpers.
• Read references/posix-and-os.md for std.posix, file descriptors, sockets, child processes, std.net, and cross-platform boundaries.
• Read references/build-and-interop.md for build.zig, modules, dependencies, tests, and C interop.

Default Review Heuristics

• Check whether version-specific assumptions are explicit and current.
• Check whether pointer, slice, sentinel, and alignment types match what the callee actually expects.
• Check whether error sets, optionals, and tagged unions are modeled explicitly instead of being flattened into magic values.
• Check whether switch, for, while, labeled blocks, defer, and errdefer are being used idiomatically rather than imitating C or Rust control flow.
• Check whether container ownership and allocator lifetime are obvious at the call site.
• Check whether std.mem, std.fmt, std.json, std.testing, and std.posix helpers already solve the problem before inventing custom utilities.
• Check whether the code should use std.net or higher-level std APIs before dropping to raw std.posix.
• Check whether build.zig is using current std.Build patterns instead of cargo-like or cmake-like abstractions.

Reference Map

• Read references/version-policy.md for the current stable-vs-master rule and official source order.
• Read references/language-core.md for typing, enums, unions, error handling, comptime, and control flow.
• Read references/stdlib-and-containers.md for allocators, collections, common std helpers, and testing utilities.
• Read references/posix-and-os.md for std.posix, file descriptors, sockets, and OS-facing APIs.
• Read references/build-and-interop.md for build.zig, modules, dependencies, tests, and C interop.
• Read references/official-sources.md when you need the exact upstream doc or release-note entry.