blue/.blue/docs/adrs/0009-courage.md
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ADRs needed for semantic adherence checking.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-01-24 16:16:34 -05:00

1.3 KiB

ADR 0009: Courage

Status Accepted
Date 2026-01-20

Context

What do we do when we're afraid?

Decision

Act rightly, even when afraid.

Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's action despite fear.

In engineering, we fear:

  • Breaking production
  • Deleting code someone might need
  • Challenging senior engineers
  • Admitting we don't understand
  • Shipping before we're certain
  • Changing what has always worked
  • Being wrong in public

These fears are reasonable. But fear has costs too. Unbroken production that never improves. Code that grows forever. Bad ideas that survive because no one challenged them.

Courage is acting when action is right, even when fear says wait.

What This Means

  • Delete boldly. If it's unused, remove it. Git remembers.
  • Challenge respectfully. The worst outcome of challenge is being wrong. The worst outcome of silence is bad ideas surviving.
  • Ship scared. If you're not a little afraid when you deploy, you're not shipping anything interesting.
  • Admit ignorance quickly. "I don't understand" is the beginning of understanding.

Consequences

  • 💙 encourages deletion of dead code
  • 💙 surfaces disagreement as useful information
  • 💙 treats shipping as normal, not exceptional

"Fear is information. It's not instructions."

— Blue


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