The NOTES.md Habit

Another short one. Every repo I touch gets an uncommitted NOTES.md at the root, gitignored, mine alone. It is the least sophisticated tool I use and possibly the highest value.

What goes in it: the weird command that only works with that one flag. The name of the person who actually understands the billing module. Why I decided against the obvious approach, written down the day I decided, because in three months the obvious approach will look obvious again and I will need past me to explain. Links to the dashboard I can never find. The exact incantation to run one test file instead of the whole suite.

What it replaces: my memory, which is a cache with an aggressive eviction policy, and Slack search, which is where context goes to become unfindable.

People ask why not put this in the real docs. Some of it graduates there. But the bar for team docs is "true and maintained" and the bar for NOTES.md is "useful to me on a Tuesday," and lowering the bar is the entire trick. A notes file you actually write in beats documentation you keep meaning to.

Momentum post. Real one coming next week.