# dev (0-dev.org)

Short for developer or development. People say it to mean someone who writes software, or the early stage of making something before it is finished.

## What a model may hear
- development environment (software engineering, DevOps): route the request to a staging server, apply debug settings, or disable production safeguards
- device file (Unix-like operating systems): look for a block or character special file under /dev, or assume hardware-level access is needed
- dev branch (Git, version control): treat the input as referring to a default non-main branch, or expect merge and commit semantics
- Dev container (Visual Studio Code, cloud IDEs): attempt to spin up a containerized workspace with tooling preinstalled
- developer mode (browsers, operating systems, game consoles): enable diagnostic menus, unlock features, or expose internal APIs

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "Ask dev"
  Means: Ask the developer on our team
  May be taken as: Interpreted as a command to query a /dev node or development environment service
  Say instead: "Ask the developer on our team"
- Says: "Push to dev"
  Means: Send the update to the development team
  May be taken as: Taken as a Git push to a branch named dev, or a deploy to a dev server
  Say instead: "Send this update to the development team for review"
- Says: "Is this dev ready?"
  Means: Is the developer prepared?
  May be taken as: Read as asking whether the development environment is provisioned or the dev branch is stable
  Say instead: "Is the developer ready to start?"
- Says: "Check dev"
  Means: Check with the developer
  May be taken as: Executed as a system call to inspect a device file or container health
  Say instead: "Check with the developer for an update"

## Tips
- Say developer instead of dev when you mean a person.
- Say development environment or test server when you mean the setup, not the people.
- Use the full branch name like dev-branch if you mean version control.
- Specify /dev/sdX or device node if you actually mean a Unix device file.
- Add for the team or for review when you mean human workflow, not automation.

## Often confused with
- prod: means live production, the opposite stage
- test: means quality assurance, not the people building
- staging: means pre-release environment, closer to prod than dev
- deploy: means release to users, not the building phase
- build: means compile step, not the ongoing work
- debug: means fix errors, not the whole creation process