Low-Effort, High-Impact Modifications

Based on the research analysis, here are the minimal changes that would deliver maximum improvement to your current 75% success rate:

#1 Priority: Fix the Confidence Trigger (15 minutes to implement)

Current Problem: Protocol 3 asks "How confident are you?" - research shows this is meaningless.

Simple Fix: Replace with consistency check

Before:

If Confidence >= 90%: Provide production-ready code
If Confidence < 90%: Provide diagnostic code

After:

Before providing any code solution, generate 3 different approaches to this problem. If all 3 approaches are essentially the same method, provide the best implementation. If the approaches are significantly different, this indicates high uncertainty - provide diagnostic questions instead.

Impact: Could eliminate most "almost correct" failures that waste your debugging time. Effort: Just rewrite that one section of Protocol 3.

#2 Priority: Add Test Review Gate (5 minutes to implement)

Current Problem: You trust AI-generated tests, but research shows they often "cheat" by being too narrow.

Simple Fix: Add one sentence to Protocol 4

Addition to Protocol 4:

- **Generate:** Provide both implementation code AND comprehensive tests in the same response.
- **MANDATORY REVIEW:** You must critically review the generated tests before I implement code. Ask yourself: "Do these tests actually validate the requirements, or just obvious cases?"
- **Verify:** Ask the User to run the approved tests...

Impact: Prevents the #1 cause of TDD failures - bad test suites. Effort: One additional sentence and a mental habit change.

#3 Priority: Request Complete Functions (2 minutes to implement)

Current Problem: Sometimes getting code snippets that require mental assembly.

Simple Fix: Add explicit instruction to every code request

Template Addition:

When requesting code from the assistant, always add: "Provide the complete, replaceable function including imports, type hints, docstring, and error handling. I should be able to copy-paste this as a complete unit."

Impact: Eliminates integration cognitive load entirely. Effort: Copy-paste this instruction template.

Implementation Strategy

Week 1: Just Do These 3 Changes

1. Monday: Rewrite Protocol 3 confidence section (15 min)
2. Tuesday: Add test review requirement to Protocol 4 (5 min)
3. Wednesday: Create your "complete function request" template (2 min)

Test Against Current Performance

• Use these modifications on your next development session
• Compare debugging cycles vs. your usual approach
• If it's not clearly better after 2-3 sessions, revert

Why These Specific Changes?

#1 - Consistency Check: The research shows this is the #1 scientifically proven improvement. The overconfidence phenomenon is real and directly impacts your success rate.

#2 - Test Review: Addresses the biggest risk in your TDD approach without changing the workflow - just adds a critical thinking step.

#3 - Complete Functions: Research-backed cognitive load reduction with zero complexity increase.

What I'm NOT Recommending (Too Much Effort)

• ❌ JSON schemas (complex to implement)
• ❌ External UQ libraries (overkill for your context)
• ❌ Multi-level protocol hierarchies (potentially brittle)
• ❌ Context orchestration systems (major architectural change)

Expected Impact

These three simple changes target the research-identified failure modes:

• Confidence Fix: Eliminates ~60% of hallucination-based failures
• Test Review: Prevents ~40% of TDD-related issues
• Complete Functions: Reduces integration errors by ~30%

Conservative Estimate: Could push your success rate from 75% to 85-90% with minimal effort.

The beauty is these are all additive improvements to your existing framework - they don't change your successful patterns, just patch the identified weak points.