Computer Science Fundamentals skills for AI agents

Triggers when users need help with algorithm design, data structure selection, or complexity analysis. Activate for questions about Big-O notation, amortized analysis, sorting algorithms (quicksort, mergesort, radix sort, counting sort), search algorithms, hash tables, trees (BST, AVL, red-black, B-trees, tries), heaps, graph algorithms (DFS, BFS, Dijkstra, A*, topological sort, minimum spanning trees), dynamic programming patterns, greedy algorithms, or choosing the right data structure for a problem.

Triggers when users need help with compiler design, language implementation, or code generation. Activate for questions about lexical analysis, tokenization, regex engines, parsing (LL, LR, PEG), abstract syntax trees, semantic analysis, type checking, intermediate representations (SSA, three-address code), optimization passes (dead code elimination, loop unrolling, inlining), code generation, JIT compilation, garbage collection algorithms, or building interpreters and compilers.

Triggers when users need help with computational complexity theory or its practical implications. Activate for questions about P vs NP, complexity classes (P, NP, NP-complete, NP-hard, PSPACE, BPP), reductions, approximation algorithms, randomized algorithms, amortized analysis, space complexity, circuit complexity, decidability, the halting problem, or making engineering decisions based on problem hardness.

Triggers when users need help with computer architecture, hardware performance, or low-level optimization. Activate for questions about CPU pipeline stages, cache hierarchy (L1/L2/L3, cache coherence, MESI protocol), branch prediction, out-of-order execution, SIMD (SSE, AVX), memory hierarchy, NUMA architecture, GPU architecture (CUDA cores, warps, shared memory), DMA, storage hierarchy (NVMe, SSD internals), interconnects, or understanding how hardware affects software performance.

Triggers when users need help with computer networking concepts, protocols, or architecture. Activate for questions about TCP/IP, HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3, QUIC, TLS handshake, DNS resolution, WebSockets, gRPC, load balancing (L4 vs L7), CDN architecture, network security, firewalls, DDoS mitigation, BGP, MTU, fragmentation, connection pooling, or debugging network issues.

Triggers when users need help with concurrent or parallel programming. Activate for questions about thread safety, mutexes, semaphores, condition variables, lock-free data structures, the actor model, CSP (communicating sequential processes), async/await patterns, coroutines, thread pools, parallel algorithms, memory models, happens-before relationships, deadlock prevention, work stealing, or reasoning about concurrent correctness and performance.

Triggers when users need help with cryptography concepts, protocols, or implementation decisions. Activate for questions about symmetric encryption (AES, ChaCha20), asymmetric encryption (RSA, elliptic curves), hash functions (SHA-256, BLAKE3), digital signatures, key exchange (Diffie-Hellman, ECDH), TLS/SSL, certificate chains, zero-knowledge proofs, homomorphic encryption, post-quantum cryptography, or choosing the right cryptographic primitives for a system.

Triggers when users need help with database internals, storage engines, or query optimization. Activate for questions about B-tree and LSM-tree storage engines, write-ahead logging (WAL), MVCC, query optimization (cost-based, rule-based), join algorithms (nested loop, hash join, sort-merge join), indexing strategies (B-tree, hash, GIN, GiST, BRIN), buffer pool management, transaction isolation levels, write amplification, or understanding how databases work under the hood.

Triggers when users need help with distributed systems design or debugging. Activate for questions about CAP theorem, consensus protocols (Paxos, Raft), distributed transactions (2PC, Saga pattern), replication strategies, consistent hashing, vector clocks, CRDTs, leader election, distributed locking, service mesh, circuit breakers, load balancing algorithms, backpressure, or reasoning about consistency and availability tradeoffs in multi-node systems.

Triggers when users need help with formal methods, formal verification, or rigorous specification. Activate for questions about model checking (TLA+, SPIN), property-based testing (QuickCheck, Hypothesis), theorem proving, invariant specification, temporal logic (LTL, CTL), design by contract, formal verification of concurrent systems, when to use formal methods vs testing, or applying lightweight formal methods in industry settings.

Triggers when users need help with information retrieval, search systems, or ranking algorithms. Activate for questions about inverted indexes, TF-IDF, BM25, vector search (approximate nearest neighbor, HNSW, IVF), embedding models for retrieval, hybrid search (lexical + semantic), relevance feedback, query understanding, faceted search, search ranking, evaluation metrics (NDCG, MRR, MAP), search infrastructure (Elasticsearch, Vespa), or building and optimizing search systems.

Triggers when users need help with operating system concepts, internals, or system-level programming. Activate for questions about process management, scheduling algorithms, IPC, signals, memory management, virtual memory, paging, TLB, file systems (ext4, ZFS, BTRFS), I/O models (blocking, non-blocking, async, epoll, kqueue), system calls, kernel architecture (monolithic vs microkernel), containers (cgroups, namespaces), or understanding how the OS manages hardware resources.

Triggers when users need help with programming language theory, type systems, or language design. Activate for questions about type systems (static vs dynamic, strong vs weak, gradual typing), type inference (Hindley-Milner), polymorphism (parametric, ad-hoc, subtyping), lambda calculus, functional programming principles (immutability, higher-order functions, monads), memory management models (garbage collection, ownership/borrowing, ARC), or understanding how language design choices affect program correctness and expressiveness.

Triggers when users need help with large-scale system design, architecture, or capacity planning. Activate for questions about system design methodology, capacity planning, back-of-envelope calculations, horizontal vs vertical scaling, caching strategies (CDN, application, database), message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS), rate limiting, idempotency, eventual consistency patterns, observability (logs, metrics, traces), or designing systems that handle millions of users.