Use this skill ALWAYS when the user asks to start a new project, initialize a repository, bootstrap a new app, or set up a codebase from scratch. It provides Paul's exact required modern stack conventions (pnpm, native node test, esbuild/vite, and buildless-types). If the user mentions "new project" or "setup", you must consult this skill before creating any files to ensure the correct architecture is used.
When setting up a new project or initializing a repository, use this modern stack and these specific configuration conventions.
We use this specific stack to maximize execution speed, minimize configuration overhead, and avoid slow build steps during development.
pnpm (for strict dependency resolution and speed)buildless-types standard (JSDoc or Erasable Syntax with tsc --noEmit to get type safety without the overhead of a build step)node --test)`. We avoid Jest entirely because it is notoriously slow and requires complex transpilation pipelines.esbuild (for fast Node.js tooling compilation).Apply these baseline settings to enable the preferred workflow.
package.jsonEnsure the project is an ES Module and defines standard scripts inspired by Paul's existing projects:
{
"type": "module",
"engines": {
"node": ">=24.11.0"
},
"scripts": {
"test": "pnpm run typecheck && pnpm run test:node",
"test:node": "node --test test/**/*.test.js",
"typecheck": "tsc --noEmit",
"preflight": "pnpm typecheck && pnpm test"
}
}
buildless-types).ts files directly using erasable syntax, or use complete JSDoc annotations in .js files.tsconfig.json should align with the buildless-types skill constraints (e.g., erasableSyntaxOnly: true, verbatimModuleSyntax: true, allowImportingTsExtensions: true).node script.ts. Do not use tools like npx tsx or ts-node.node --test) for unit and integration testing. It requires zero configuration and runs extremely fast.vitest.jest completely due to its performance overhead and configuration complexity.esbuild for fast Node.js CLI tooling compilation or generic JS bundling.vite for modern web application frontend development and building.