Tech Debt

Fix Now If Quick

In the AI era where AI can code quickly: fix now — “later” never comes. The cost of fixing small issues is near zero with AI assistance. The cost of accumulating them compounds.

Keep Debt for Clear Reasons

Tech debt for clear reasons is fine. Scope management, phased development, incremental delivery — these are valid reasons to carry debt intentionally.

• PoCs and prototypes: anything goes. Speed wins when building to try and potentially drop.
• The problem is unintentional debt that accumulates silently without a plan to address it.

Debt vs Architecture Evolution

Architecture decisions that made sense in one phase become problems in the next. That is not debt — that is evolution. Vercel was right for prototyping and wrong for production. A monolith was right for a small team and painful for five parallel teams.

Recognize when the current constraint has shifted. Change architecture before it becomes the bottleneck. Do not over-engineer for a future that may not arrive. Do not keep structures that no longer serve the current phase.

Evolution

• Feb 2026 — initial version from IDENTITY.md positions and architecture evolution article.