.tips
page 3 of 10, 238 small things in all. back to the first.
.august
2026, 2 tips.
.july
2026, 23 tips.
A contract test catches the API change before the deploy
testingdistributed-systemsOne wide event per request instead of ten log lines
observabilityA builder per entity, with sensible defaults
testingA canary that checks the output, not the status code
reliabilityobservabilitySeed the random generator and print the seed on failure
testingA flaky test goes to quarantine the day it flakes
testingengineering-practiceGive every LLM feature a token budget
llmreliabilityProperty tests find the input you would not have thought of
testingThe kill switch is not the rollout flag
reliabilityfeature-flagsSnapshots for output you would diff by eye, nothing else
testingMock HTTP at the network, not the function that calls it
testingPin GitHub Actions by commit digest, not tag
securityciTests that touch time use a fake clock
testingPublish with OIDC and delete the npm token
securitynpmciA test name is the sentence that is true when it passes
testingAn error budget turns 'is it reliable enough' into a number
observabilitysreDo not install a package published this week
securitynpmIf the fix is 'wait', it should not page
observabilitysreOne dashboard per service, four panels at the top
observabilitysreTurn off install scripts and allow the few that need them
securitynpmSample the boring logs, keep every failure
observabilitycostpytest -x --lf when you are fixing a failure
pythontestingPick field names once and use them everywhere
observability