ia-c-systems

C patterns for systems code, libraries, and native extensions: module layout, function decomposition, status-enum errors, memory safety, undefined behavior, and performance measurement. Use when writing, reviewing, refactoring, or debugging C, working with malloc lifetimes, buffer overflows, sanitizers, or Valgrind, or building native extensions. For C++, see ia-cpp-systems.

C Systems & Native Code

Covers C11 and later for libraries, systems code, and native extensions. For C++ (RAII, templates, move semantics), see the ia-cpp-systems skill.

Working rules

• Preserve the repository's sanctioned idioms and ABI; do not turn a scoped fix into a restyle.
• State ownership, check fallible calls, validate public boundaries, and assert internal invariants.
• Bound traversal of external input and check sizes before allocation or narrowing.
• Choose helpers only when they name a concept, own an error, or isolate a side effect.
• Verify the actual rebuilt artifact; use instrumented tests for safety and representative release builds for performance.

Repo conventions outrank this skill

Read the repo's AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, its public headers, and two adjacent .c files before writing anything. Where they conflict with the rules below, they win, and the diff carries no note about it.

This gate is load-bearing. Established C codebases sanction idioms these rules would otherwise flag:

Local idiom	Where it is correct
Tab indentation	php-src and its extensions, Linux kernel
goto cleanup / goto err	Kernel, OpenSSL, curl, php-src: the dominant multi-resource release idiom
Macros containing return	RETURN_*/RETVAL_* in PHP extensions, Py_RETURN_* in CPython
Project status types	zend_result, CURLcode, int plus errno: do not invent a parallel enum beside one

Never widen a scoped task into a repo-wide restyle because adjacent untouched C predates a rule here.

When the target is a PHP extension (php_*.h, PHP_FUNCTION, zend_, config.m4), load php-extension-c.md before applying any rule below. Layout, macros, the error model, memory, and assertions all carry extension-specific overrides, and the memory one in particular inverts the base guidance: extensions use a request-scoped allocator, not malloc/free.

Verify

• Build passes under the repo's warning profile with zero newly introduced warnings (greenfield: the full -Wall -Wextra -Werror -Wconversion -Wshadow bundle, zero warnings)
• Test suite passes under -fsanitize=address,undefined with zero reports
• valgrind --leak-check=full --error-exitcode=1 clean where the suite links under it
• Every new fallible call site checked; every new error value traced to one producer
• Every new state-mutating leaf carries an assert
• No new goto outside the repo's sanctioned form or the single-forward-jump cleanup; no recursion over external input; no loop over external input without a named bound

Task-specific references

Read the relevant reference before implementing or reviewing the matching behavior:

• For module layout, naming, decomposition, control flow, errors, types, or macros: implementation-structure.md.
• For memory, external input, assertions, ABI changes, or shared-helper contracts: runtime-safety.md.
• For compiler setup, tests, build provenance, packaging, or performance claims: build-and-measurement.md.

Existing specialized references, when the corresponding topic applies:

• php-extension-c.md.
• memory-safety.md.
• correctness-traps.md.
• legibility-standard.md.