Long Term Debt Tracker

Decision Tree

flowchart TD
    A[Identify Debt] --> B{High Risk?}
    B -->|Yes| C[Escalate for Immediate Fix]
    B -->|No| D{High Maintenance Cost?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Add to Next Sprint]
    D -->|No| F[Log in Backlog]
    E --> G[Link to Spec/Incident]
    F --> G

Review Checklist

1. Quantification: Is the cost of the debt (e.g., extra dev hours) estimated?
2. Origin: Is it documented why this debt was introduced (e.g., "rushed for MVP")?
3. Trend: Is the project debt increasing or decreasing over time?
4. Scope: Does the remediation plan address the root cause?

How to provide feedback

• Be specific: "The entry 'Refactor Auth' is too broad."
• Explain why: "Broad debt items are never prioritized because they lack clear scope."
• Suggest alternatives: "Break into: 'Extract JWT logic from Controller' and 'Add unit tests for refresh-token'."

Untracked debt compounds silently.