The Congealing Slop
It works on my machine (and the model's).
Congealing Slop is what happens when AI-generated code accumulates without enough shaping. Each piece works in isolation. Together, they form a substance that resists change, defies understanding, and slowly absorbs every developer who touches it.
- Symptom
- A codebase nobody would have designed on purpose. Inconsistent conventions, redundant abstractions, and a 'how' that has become too tangled to explain.
- Why it matters
- It's not one big mistake — it's a thousand small ones that hardened before anyone noticed. Refactors stop landing. Velocity drops. Nobody can point to where it went wrong.
- What the chapter gives you
- The early shape of Congealing Slop in PRs, the review habits that keep it from setting, and the refactor patterns that work once it has.
From Volume 1 of The AI Developer's Field Guide
Read the full chapter in The AI Developer's Field Guide.
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