vault
every project i've shipped sits on top of things i didn't fully understand when i shipped them. a library i imported without reading. a pattern i copied because it worked. there's a gap between what runs and what i could rebuild, and for a while i pretended the gap wasn't there.
that pretending is the actual problem. the gap is just debt. debt is normal, you take it on to ship, and most useful things get built on a little of it. what turns it toxic is hiding it from yourself, because then it compounds quietly and you never schedule the repayment.
debt isn't shameful. carrying it silently is.
so now i name it. i keep a short, honest list of the things i'm leaning on but couldn't reconstruct. then i pay it down on purpose, usually by building the thing from scratch until it stops being magic.
the test for whether you've actually repaid it is simple and a little brutal: close the tab and rebuild it from memory. if you can't, you were renting understanding, not owning it. more on that in the easiest person to fool.