What I look for in an oncall handoff

If a config file has more than a dozen options, half of them aren't being used. The other half are being used in ways the original author didn't predict.

Every time I revisit a project after six months, I find at least one place where past-me wrote a comment that present-me has now stopped trusting. Comments rot faster than code.

I used to add a layer of abstraction the first time I saw a pattern repeat. Now I wait for the third. The waiting is uncomfortable, but the abstractions that survive that wait tend to last.