Competence, tooling and onboarding¶

Owner: Engineering manager
Applies to: All team members, all sites, and all tools and domains used
Enforcement: Competence matrix reviews, onboarding audit, review
Related: EG-002, EG-005, EG-011, EG-013, EG-014

Note

Rules marked (core) apply to every product and cannot be tailored. Other rules, and all numeric values, are proposed defaults that a product may tailor in its conformance profile (EG-001).

Purpose¶

Keep skills, tool mastery and domain knowledge deliberately maintained. The team should understand the tools and domain it depends on, and no capability should sit with a single person or site.

Rules¶

CMP-01 A competence matrix MUST be maintained covering languages, RTOS, silicon platforms, protocols, tools, domain areas, security and test, with levels 0 to 4. It is reviewed twice a year.
CMP-02 Areas with a single competent person MUST be tracked as risks (PLN-05), with a plan to build cover.
CMP-03 Expected depth for each tool MUST be defined (below) and used in onboarding and training plans.
CMP-04 Each tool and domain area MUST have a champion who maintains a short “how we use X” page in docs/how-to/ and answers questions. Champions are listed in the ownership register.
CMP-05 Each domain area (protocols, standards, regulation, hardware, security, customer use) MUST have a named subject matter expert and deputy, and a short primer document.
CMP-06 Onboarding MUST follow a documented path: environment set up in under one day by one command, a first-week checklist, a buddy, a guided walkthrough of these guidelines (not just a link) and a first PR through the full process.
CMP-07 The environment setup MUST be tested in CI, so that onboarding does not rot.
CMP-08 An annual training plan MUST exist, with protected learning time (proposed 5 percent), recorded by person.
CMP-09 Knowledge sharing MUST be regular: technical talks, cross-site pairing or rotations and design walkthroughs of major components. Sessions SHOULD be recorded and stored.
CMP-10 Rationale MUST be captured in ADRs and documents, not in people’s heads. A handover checklist MUST be used when someone leaves or changes role.
CMP-11 Key areas MUST have knowledge at two or more sites (VAL-07).
CMP-12 Team members MUST be trained in effective and safe use of AI agents, including reviewing agent output and handling data (EG-005, EG-022).
CMP-13 New tool versions or tools MUST be introduced with training and a radar update (TEC-01).

Expected depth by tool and domain¶

Area	Expected understanding
Git	Object model (commits, refs, the graph), rebase versus merge, reflog for recovery, bisect, worktrees, rerere, `cherry-pick -x`, history rewriting rules
Build system and linker	Build system internals, linker scripts, map files, memory layout, reproducibility
Compiler	Flags, optimisation and link-time optimisation effects, undefined behaviour, debuggability
Static analysis and test tools	What each checks, false positive profile, configuration, suppression rules
Debug and trace	Probes, breakpoints and trace, crash dump decoding, timing analysis
Target platform	Peripherals, memory map, errata, boot process
RTOS	Scheduling, priorities, synchronisation, memory model, interrupt handling
Bootloader and update	Chain of trust, image formats, atomic update, rollback
CI and containers	Pipeline structure, container toolchains, artefact handling
Domain and standards	Protocols, regulatory context and use cases for our products

Compliance¶

Rule	Checked by
CMP-01, CMP-02	Competence matrix review, risk register
CMP-04, CMP-05	Ownership register and how-to page check
CMP-06, CMP-07	Onboarding feedback, CI environment setup job
CMP-08	Training plan review

Checklist¶

Tick an item when it is true for your project. Rule IDs point to the detail above.

As Markdown. To copy it into an issue, a pull request or a review record:

- [ ] A competence matrix covers languages, RTOS, platforms, protocols, tools, domains, security and test (CMP-01)
- [ ] Single-person areas are tracked as risks (CMP-02)
- [ ] Expected depth per tool is defined and used in training (CMP-03)
- [ ] Each tool and domain area has a champion and a how-to page (CMP-04)
- [ ] Domain experts and deputies are named and primers written (CMP-05)
- [ ] An onboarding path is documented and the environment is set up in under one day (CMP-06)
- [ ] Environment setup is tested in CI (CMP-07)
- [ ] An annual training plan has protected learning time (CMP-08)
- [ ] Knowledge sharing is regular and sessions are recorded (CMP-09)
- [ ] Rationale is captured in ADRs and docs, and a handover checklist exists for leavers (CMP-10)
- [ ] Key areas are known at two or more sites (CMP-11)
- [ ] The team is trained in safe and effective use of AI agents (CMP-12)
- [ ] New tools are introduced with training and a radar update (CMP-13)

Applying to personal projects and AI agents¶

Personal projects¶

Starts at the Full profile (see personal-projects.md). Treat the expected-depth table as your learning plan, especially git internals and the debug tools. Keep a short learning log and a docs/how-to/ page for anything you had to relearn twice. A one-command environment setup is worth doing even solo, and it is what lets agents work reliably.

AI agents¶

Write or update a docs/how-to/ page when you discover a non-obvious procedure (CMP-04, CMP-10).
Keep the environment setup script working and tested (CMP-07).
Point to ADRs and docs for rationale and do not rely on chat history (CMP-10).