Picking up without guessing
2026-09
An architecture should also make it possible to pick up where someone left off.
A few weeks pass. Someone joins. A decision needs to be revisited. The code is still there, but the reasons have grown distant.
I want to recover what was expected, why this boundary exists, and what would allow it to move.
A useful record preserves the reasons that change how we act: the constraint we encountered, the choice we made, the uncertainty still unresolved.
Whoever picks up the work should be able to examine those choices and challenge them.
Handing over means giving them enough context to decide for themselves.