sorting.md

Sorting reference

Sort lists alphanumerically (literal byte order, ASCII before letters).

Where to sort

• Config lists — permissions.allow / permissions.deny in .claude/settings.json, external-tools.json checksum keys, allowlists in workflow YAML.
• Object key entries — keys in plain JSON config + return-shape literals + internal-state objects. (Exception: __proto__: null always comes first, ahead of any data keys.)
• Import specifiers — sort named imports inside a single statement: import { encrypt, randomDataKey, wrapKey } from './crypto.mts'. import type follows the same rule. Statement order (node: → external → local → types) is separate from specifier order within a statement.
• Method / function placement — within a module, sort top-level functions alphabetically. Convention: private functions (lowercase / un-exported) sort first, exported functions second. The export keyword is the divider.
• Array literals — when the array is a config list, allowlist, or set-like collection. Position-bearing arrays (e.g. argv, anything where index matters semantically) keep their meaningful order.
• Set constructor arguments — new Set([...]) and new SafeSet([...]) literals. The runtime is order-insensitive, so source order is alphanumeric. Same rationale as Array literals: predictable diffs, no merge conflicts on insertions.
• Regex alternation groups — (foo|bar|baz) reads as (bar|baz|foo). Capturing, non-capturing, and named-capture groups all follow the rule. Auto-fixable when every alternative is a simple literal. The exception is order-bearing alternations where the regex engine MUST try one alternative before another (rare; the canonical example is markup parsers where <!--|--> would silently mismatch if reordered) — append // socket-hook: allow regex-alternation-order on those lines.
• String-equality disjunctions — x === 'a' || x === 'b' || x === 'c' reads with the comparand strings in alpha order. The De Morgan dual x !== 'a' && x !== 'b' (negative-membership check) follows the same rule. The || chain short-circuits regardless of operand order; sorting reduces diff churn when adding new comparands and makes "is X in this set?" checks visually consistent. Auto-fixable when every clause has the same left operand and uses string-literal comparands. Mixed shape (different left, different operator, non-string right) is skipped — those are usually genuine ordering-sensitive predicates and the autofix would change semantics.

Default

When in doubt, sort. The cost of a sorted list that didn't need to be is approximately zero; the cost of an unsorted list that did need to be is a merge conflict.