Systems Outlive Features
I didn’t realize how many systems I was responsible for until one quietly bit me in the ass four years later.
By “system,” I mean anything with persistent behavior and institutional knowledge attached to it: a data store, an integration, an auth pipeline, a build system, a domain model, even a business workflow.
We shipped IndexedDB via DexieJS four years ago. Then everyone forgot about it… until it broke. That’s when I realized I didn’t actually “own” that system, even though I thought I understood the solution.
Owning systems for me now means:
- Keeping an inventory of what actually exists in production
- Knowing where documentation lives (and when it doesn’t***)
- Periodically reviewing whether the thing is still relevant
- Setting a personal standard for how systems are treated
***This post is nothing more than a snarky reminder for me to get working on documentation.