Methodology — NRD Sight

Two things are scored on every meaningful change: the twelve dimensions below, and the business value the work delivered. Training and paste-ready prompts sit beside those scores — they teach the next change, they are not a third career metric.

CorrectnessDoes it actually work, including the edges

TestingCoverage where it counts, not vanity %

SecurityInjection, authz, secrets, unsafe patterns

Error handlingFailures contained, propagated, logged

MaintainabilityWill the next person thank or curse them

ReadabilityNames, structure, intent on the page

PerformanceHot paths, N+1s, needless allocation

API designContracts a consumer can trust

Idiomatic masteryFluency in the language & framework

DocumentationThe why, written down where it lives

Scope disciplineOne change, done well, nothing smuggled

Review responsivenessHow feedback lands and gets absorbed

+ 24 principles checked on every PRSOLIDDRYKISSYAGNILaw of DemeterFail fastImmutabilityLow couplingTwelve-factorNo magic valuesBoy scout rule

Evidence, not oracles

When a number surprises you, click through to the exact lines.

Every raw model response is stored. The trail is developer → rollup → analysis row → quoted diff. Methodology changes are a new version of the rubric, not a silent re-grade of history you can no longer explain.

Trivial work is free

Lockfiles, typos, and three-line no-ops never hit the model. You pay for judgment, not noise.

Any language

The rubric measures engineering judgment — correctness, testing, error handling, design — in whatever language or framework the repo already uses.

Business value is a second axis

Quality is not the same as impact. We score both, so a careful cleanup and a high-priority delivery are not forced onto one number.

Why not velocity tools

Speed is easy to count. Craft is not.

Velocity & DORA tools

Cycle time, deploy frequency, PR throughput
Treat a brilliant refactor and a copy-paste hack the same
Can't tell you who your strongest engineers actually are
Unreadable to anyone outside engineering
Coaching advice: "merge smaller PRs"

NRD Sight

Reads every diff against a published 12-dimension rubric
Every score cites the exact lines of code as evidence
Skill inventory and growth trend per developer, per team
A plain-English executive view for non-technical leaders
Coaching: a program and a prompt from that engineer's own PRs

Twelve dimensions of engineering craft. Zero vibes.