Exam Week for the Developer Seat

Why this matters

Developer-seat performance lives in the hands: generation flows, verification habits, probe-shape recall. Hands peak with rhythm plus rest, not with new material. Exam week protects the hands while the checklist absorbs the worry.

Concepts

Taper identically: no new domains, retiring drills only, one light mock Monday for rhythm. Rehearse the developer rituals until boring: generate-then-verify on every manifest, eight-minute authoring caps, the verification sweep that checks answers without re-applying. Logistics lock by Wednesday: ID, connection plus tested tether, quiet room, rules re-read with attention to breaks and environment reset behavior.

Hands need protection: no new keyboard layouts, editor configs or alias changes in exam week. Every novelty is friction scheduled at the worst moment. Thursday is a thirty-minute warmup and an early night with boxes ticked.

Worked example

Exam Friday, developer edition:

Mon: light mock developer-ordered, 2h max, miss review same shape
Tue: retiring drills (miss log) + tether tested + ID checked
Wed: ritual rehearsal: generate-verify-caps-sweep on old tasks, room locked
Thu: 30-minute warmup only, early night, checklist ticked
Fri: normal morning, early login, reading pass, procedure carries you
Banned: new tools, new aliases, new domains, late nights, layout changes

Verify Thursday night: drills retired or listed, tether proven, rituals recited, nothing new installed. Ticked boxes beat good intentions.

Exam notes

A Thursday alias improvement breaks Friday muscle memory: freeze the toolkit Monday. New practice material Thursday night can only donate doubt. And the warmup is short on purpose: hands reminded, not tired.