avalonia-zafiro-development – Design & UI skill for AI agents

Avalonia Zafiro Development

This skill defines the mandatory conventions and behavioral rules for developing cross-platform applications with Avalonia UI and the Zafiro toolkit. These rules prioritize maintainability, correctness, and a functional-reactive approach.

Core Pillars

1. Functional-Reactive MVVM: Pure MVVM logic using DynamicData and ReactiveUI.

2. Safety & Predictability: Explicit error handling with Result types and avoidance of exceptions for flow control.

3. Cross-Platform Excellence: Strictly Avalonia-independent ViewModels and composition-over-inheritance.

4. Zafiro First: Leverage existing Zafiro abstractions and helpers to avoid redundancy.

Guides

• [Core Technical Skills & Architecture](core-technical-skills.md): Fundamental skills and architectural principles.
• [Naming & Coding Standards](naming-standards.md): Rules for naming, fields, and error handling.
• [Avalonia, Zafiro & Reactive Rules](avalonia-reactive-rules.md): Specific guidelines for UI, Zafiro integration, and DynamicData pipelines.
• [Zafiro Shortcuts](zafiro-shortcuts.md): Concise mappings for common Rx/Zafiro operations.
• [Common Patterns](patterns.md): Advanced patterns like RefreshableCollection and Validation.

Compatibility and validation

These are project/toolkit conventions, not universal .NET rules; follow the actual repository’s requirements and pinned Zafiro/ReactiveUI/DynamicData APIs. Verify shortcut semantics (especially null/empty/whitespace distinctions) instead of assuming table equivalence. Validate the collection’s intended empty/all-valid behavior: filtering valid items then testing non-empty does not prove every item is valid. Preserve cancellation, UI-thread scheduling and disposal ownership when adapting reactive examples.

Procedure Before Writing Code

1. Search First: Search the codebase for similar implementations or existing Zafiro helpers.

2. Reusable Extensions: If a helper is missing, propose a new reusable extension method instead of inlining complex logic.

3. Reactive Pipelines: Ensure DynamicData operators are used instead of plain Rx where applicable.

When to Use

This skill is applicable to execute the workflow or actions described in the overview.

Limitations

• Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above.
• Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
• Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing.