docs/technical-debt/index.md

Technical Debt Overview

Last Updated: 2025-12-06

This directory tracks technical debt, known issues, and areas for improvement in the DeepBoner codebase.

What is Technical Debt?

Technical debt is the implied cost of future work caused by choosing an easy (but limited) solution now instead of a better approach that would take longer. Like financial debt, it accumulates interest over time.

Documentation Structure

technical-debt/
├── index.md           # This file - overview and summary
└── debt-registry.md   # Itemized debt tracking

Current Debt Summary

Category	Count	Severity
Architecture	3	Medium
Code Quality	4	Low
Testing	2	Medium
Documentation	2	Low
Performance	2	Low
Dependencies	1	Medium

Total Items: 14

Severity Levels

Level	Description	Action
Critical	Blocks production or security risk	Fix immediately
High	Significant impact on reliability	Fix this sprint
Medium	Impacts developer experience	Plan for fix
Low	Nice to have improvement	Backlog

How to Use This Documentation

For Developers

1. Before starting work, check if your area has known debt
2. When you encounter issues, document them here
3. When fixing debt, update the registry

For Planning

1. Review debt before sprint planning
2. Allocate capacity for debt reduction
3. Prioritize by severity and effort

For New Contributors

1. Read this to understand known limitations
2. Don't be surprised by documented issues
3. Consider fixing debt as a contribution

Adding New Debt Items

Add to debt-registry.md using this format:

### DEBT-XXX: Short Title

**Category:** Architecture | Code Quality | Testing | Documentation | Performance | Dependencies
**Severity:** Critical | High | Medium | Low
**Added:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Status:** Open | In Progress | Resolved

**Description:**
What is the issue?

**Impact:**
How does this affect the codebase/users?

**Current Workaround:**
How are we handling this now?

**Proposed Solution:**
How should we fix this?

**Effort Estimate:** S | M | L | XL

Debt Reduction Goals

Phase 1 (Current)

• Document all known debt (this effort)
• Prioritize by impact

Phase 2 (Near-term)

• Address all High severity items
• Reduce Medium items by 50%

Phase 3 (Long-term)

• Clear all Medium and High items
• Establish debt budget (no net increase)

Related Documentation

• Debt Registry - Complete itemized list
• Bugs - Active bug tracking
• Contributing - How to help