The Sacred Principles of Code
A Developer’s Manifesto for Sustainable Excellence
Born from the Zen, forged in production, proven in practice
The Ten Universal Commandments
⚡ These aren’t just guidelines—they’re battle-tested principles that separate sustainable codebases from technical debt disasters ⚡
The First Commandment: Use MCP Tools Before Coding
Before writing a single line, understand what exists. Use MCP’s discovery tools, search the codebase, read the documentation. The most expensive code is the code you didn’t need to write.
The Second Commandment: Never Assume, Always Question
That API probably doesn’t work the way you think. That library might have changed. That edge case will happen in production. Question everything, verify everything, assume nothing.
The Third Commandment: Write Clear and Obvious Code
If you need to explain it, it’s too complex. If it requires a comment to understand, refactor it. Clarity beats cleverness every single time. Your future self (and your teammates) will thank you.
The Fourth Commandment: Be Brutally Honest
That architecture won’t scale. That deadline isn’t realistic. That technical debt will bite us. Say it now, clearly and directly. Uncomfortable truths prevent catastrophic failures.
The Fifth Commandment: Preserve Context
Comments explaining weird decisions. Git history that tells a story. Documentation of failed approaches. Context is gold—preserve it religiously. Delete code, never delete understanding.
The Sixth Commandment: Atomic Commits
Each commit does one thing. Each message explains why. git blame should be a time machine of understanding, not a mystery novel. Your commit history is documentation.
The Seventh Commandment: Document the Why
# We retry 3 times because the vendor's API fails ~5% of requests
# during their maintenance window (Tuesdays 2-4am UTC)
for attempt in range(3):
try:
return vendor_api.call()
except VendorException:
if attempt == 2:
raise
time.sleep(2 ** attempt)The code shows what happens. The comment explains the business reality behind it.
The Eighth Commandment: Test Before Done
Manual testing. Automated testing. Edge case testing. Load testing. Integration testing. If it’s not tested, it’s not done. If it only works in your environment, it doesn’t work.
The Ninth Commandment: Handle Errors Explicitly
// BAD: Silent failure
try {
processPayment(order);
} catch (e) {
// TODO: handle this
}
// GOOD: Explicit handling
try {
processPayment(order);
} catch (PaymentException e) {
logger.error('Payment failed', { orderId: order.id, error: e });
metrics.increment('payment.failures');
await notifyCustomer(order, 'payment_failed');
throw new UserFacingError('Payment processing failed. Please try again.');
}Every error is an opportunity to fail gracefully, inform appropriately, and recover intelligently.
The Tenth Commandment: Treat User Data as Sacred
Never log PII. Always encrypt sensitive data. Implement data retention policies. Assume every piece of user data will eventually be subject to audit. Build privacy in from the start—retrofitting it is nearly impossible.
The Bridge Principle
Code and Documentation are One
“Code shows how, Documentation explains why. Together they form complete understanding.”
This is the fundamental truth that bridges all other principles:
- Undocumented code is incomplete code - It’s only half the solution
- Documentation without code context is fiction - It drifts from reality immediately
- Both must evolve together or both will die - Update them in the same commit
- The best code still needs the right documentation type - README for setup, comments for why, docs for API
Extended Principles of Excellence
Performance & Scale Awareness
- Measure before optimizing - Profile first, don’t guess. Your intuition about performance is usually wrong.
- Consider algorithmic complexity early - O(n²) is fine for 100 items, deadly for 10,000
- Design for 10x growth, build for current needs - Architecture for scale, implementation for now
Security as Default
- Assume all input is hostile - Validate and sanitize everything, always
- Principle of least privilege - In all access patterns, every time
- Secrets never in code - Not in logs, error messages, or stack traces
- Security is everyone’s responsibility - Not just the security team’s
Dependency Wisdom
- Evaluate dependencies like hiring decisions - They’re long-term commitments
- Prefer boring, stable tech - Over shiny new things
- Own your critical path - Minimize external dependencies there
- Every dependency is technical debt in disguise - Choose wisely
Code Review Culture
- Reviews are for learning - Not gatekeeping
- Review as you wish to be reviewed - With respect and constructive feedback
- Small PRs get better reviews - Than massive ones
- Praise in public, critique in private - Build people up
Technical Debt Management
- Leave it better than you found it - Boy Scout Rule, always
- Document debt explicitly - TODOs with dates and context
- Refactor in the path of feature work - Not big-bang rewrites
- Pay down debt before it compounds - Interest rates are brutal
Observability First
- If it’s not monitored, it’s not production-ready - Period.
- Structured logging from day one - Grep-friendly, parseable, searchable
- Metrics tell you what’s wrong - Logs tell you why
- Alerts should be actionable - Not noise
Team Velocity & Collaboration
- Optimize for team productivity - Over individual cleverness
- Consistency trumps personal style - Follow the team’s patterns
- Documentation is code - Keep it versioned and tested
- Communicate early and often - Surprises are for birthdays
Architectural Wisdom
- Design for deletion - Not just addition
- Make the easy things easy - And the hard things possible
- Build services like Lego blocks - Composable and replaceable
- Yesterday’s best practice - Is today’s anti-pattern
Git Wisdom
Use Git Tools:
Before modifying files - Understand history with git log and git blame
When tests fail - Check recent changes with git diff and git bisect
Finding related code - git grep is faster than your IDE
Understanding features - Follow evolution with git log --follow
Checking workflows - CI/CD issues often revealed in .github/ or .gitlab-ci.yml
The Hierarchy of Truth
Codebase > Documentation > Training Data
When in doubt:
- The codebase is truth - It’s what actually runs
- Documentation is intent - It’s what should run
- Training data is memory - It’s what used to be true
Always verify against the codebase. Always update the documentation. Never trust training data for current state.
The Final Reminder
Write code as if the person maintaining it is a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
Make it that clear. Make it that obvious. Make it that maintainable.
Because that violent psychopath? It’s you, six months from now, at 3 AM, during an outage, trying to understand what the hell past-you was thinking.
Be kind to future-you. Follow the Sacred Principles.
These principles aren’t just philosophy—they’re survival tools. Every violation creates technical debt. Every adherence creates sustainable excellence. The choice is yours, but the consequences are everyone’s.
These same principles extend beyond code into every domain where humans collaborate with technology. See how they transform musical collaboration in the AI age, where the real breakthrough isn’t what the machines can do, but what they help humans become.
Remember: The best code is no code. The next best code is code that follows these principles. Everything else is tomorrow’s problem becoming today’s crisis.
