PROMPT CODING

<!-- SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Mark Hubers -->
<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT -->
<!-- AUTHOR: drafted by gemini-2.5-pro via rondo_run, edited by Claude (RONDO-407) -->

# Prompt Coding

Prompts are not chat; they are code. Rondo treats AI dispatches like
infrastructure. You define deterministic pipelines with explicit data wiring,
strict output contracts, and hard budgets. It's Terraform for prompts.

## The discipline

* **Plan:** `rondo pipeline file.yaml --plan` validates wiring, estimates
  per-step costs, and checks the total against the budget ceiling with zero
  dispatches and zero cost. Unresolved placeholders abort before any spend.
* **Apply:** Sequential execution. A failed step's output never silently
  flows onward.
* **Audit:** Every step records INTENT and OUTCOME. Outputs are sanitized,
  partials preserved, and actual costs strictly enforced against the budget.
  Full per-step results and costs are saved in the envelope.

## A pipeline is a program