Your Codebase Is Congealing

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.

The pattern starts innocently. A developer generates a function that works. Another generates a module that works. A third generates a service that works. Nobody is doing anything wrong in the small. But the generated pieces don't share a consistent mental model. They don't follow the same conventions. They don't account for each other's assumptions. And because each piece was produced quickly and accepted quickly, the seams between them never got the attention they needed.

Over time, the codebase becomes something that nobody would have designed on purpose. It's not one big mistake — it's a thousand small ones that hardened before anyone noticed. The team starts describing the codebase in terms of what it does rather than how it works, because the "how" has become too tangled to explain.