Slicing features so each PR is reviewable in 20 minutes
Vertical slices, feature flags, and reviews that catch things.
I want to be honest about the trade-offs here. The approach I settled on solves the problem I had, not every problem of this shape, and there is a clear point where you should reach for something more heavy-duty.
A short history
What surprised me most was how small the final change was. Most of the work was understanding the problem precisely enough that the fix became obvious, and that understanding took far longer than the fix itself.
What surprised me most was how small the final change was. Most of the work was understanding the problem precisely enough that the fix became obvious, and that understanding took far longer than the fix itself.
- Read the error message twice before changing anything
- A second point, kept short on purpose
The design
The numbers below are from my own machine and my own workload. Treat them as a method, not a benchmark: the point is how the measurement was taken, not the exact figures it produced.
By the end of this post you should be able to reproduce the whole thing yourself in under an hour, including the parts I got wrong the first time — those are marked so you can skip them if you're in a hurry.
Everything above is the short version. The full write-up of how this played out is a story for another day — for now, the takeaway is simple: vertical slices, feature flags, and reviews that catch things is a decision you make once and revisit deliberately.