You must acquire the habit of doing even the things that are hard to do, and that is a habit which you will not be able to acquire if you do not begin by doing the things that are easy to do. – Seneca
Reflection
Quality is not a mood. It is a bar you defend.
Restraint starts the craft. Keeping it is the work.
Standards slip where attention thins.
In the quiet parts of a pull request.
In a name that flatters instead of explains.
At an edge that trusts what it should verify.
One exception for speed becomes the pattern for next time.
Culture moves by quiet yeses.
The master is known by what they decline.
Not by ceremony.
By small, steady refusals that protect the future from the present.
A standard is kindness disguised as friction.
It spares teammates from guessing.
It spares users from risk.
It spares your future self from defending a past you no longer believe in.
Keep the bar where you said it would be. Let the work earn its way over.
Today's Insight
A written standard is faster than debate. State the bar once. Enforce it wherever the system meets the world.
Action Steps
- Publish the bar on one page - Define the minimum to merge. Strict types on. Inputs validated at entry. One clear edge promise per feature. A thin proof of the riskiest path. Add this to the PR template so "done" is visible and finite.
- Guard the edges first - Treat every inbound value as untrusted. Validate with a strict schema. Prefer allowlists. Reject on parse failure. No silent coercion.
- Keep types honest - Turn on strict. Check inbound values at entry. In case of a mismatch, bail early and log a private trace ID only.
- Harden the surface - Deny by default. Cookies use Secure, HttpOnly, SameSite. CSP with no inline scripts and tight src lists. Error Boundary masks sensitive data and allows retry. No dangerouslySetInnerHTML unless server-sanitized.
- Prove the promise - Test the thinnest path across real services end to end. In the PR, write the edge promise in one sentence and include the test that enforces it. If you cannot test it, you cannot trust it.
- Delete the drag - Remove one policy exception or helper that teaches the team to step around the bar. Small deletions raise the floor.
Consider This
What will you refuse today so your team can move faster tomorrow?
If a stranger took your place next week, would your standard protect them or make them negotiate with your past?