Months of static analysis, two real bugs

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.

Most retry logic I've removed turned out to be hiding a real bug. The retries made the failure invisible, and the bug compounded for months in the background.

I write smaller commits than I used to. The commits are uglier in isolation and much easier to read in sequence.

I keep a small log of decisions in a text file. Not architectural — just small ones. "Picked X over Y because Z." Future me reads it more than I thought he would.