Prompt 07 — Component Reuse Audit

When to use: Before any UI feature. Stops Claude from inventing duplicates.

Before building anything new, inspect the existing components in this codebase.

Find reusable components for:
- layout (shells, grids, containers)
- buttons (primary, secondary, destructive, ghost, link)
- forms (inputs, selects, checkboxes, switches, form abstractions)
- cards
- tables
- dialogs
- menus (dropdown, context, command palette)
- tabs
- notifications (toast, alert banner)

Then tell me:
1. What to reuse — components that already match the need
2. What to extend — components that almost match (note what props/variants to add)
3. What to create new — only when nothing in the repo matches
4. What to avoid duplicating — components that exist but Claude might have missed

Show me the file paths for the reusable ones.

Do not code yet.

Why this prompt is high-leverage

The single most common Claude failure: it doesn’t know your component library exists, or knows it but ignores it. The result: a parallel system of slightly different components.

This prompt forces an audit before any building. It catches the duplication risk before it ships.

What you do with the output

Bookmark or pin the file paths Claude returns.
When the next session asks Claude to build something, paste those paths into the prompt as constraints: “Reuse src/components/ui/Button.tsx, src/components/ui/Card.tsx, …”.

Bake it into CLAUDE.md

Once you’ve done this audit once, add the result to your project’s CLAUDE.md:

## Component reuse policy

Before creating any of these, reuse the existing version:
- Buttons: src/components/ui/button.tsx
- Cards: src/components/ui/card.tsx
- Dialogs: src/components/ui/dialog.tsx
- Forms: src/components/forms/Form.tsx
- Tables: src/components/data-table/DataTable.tsx
...

To extend an existing component, add a variant or prop.
Only create a new component when the existing one cannot reasonably be extended.

After that, every future Claude Code session in this repo will respect the policy automatically.