Software Engineering for Humans

InsanelyGreat

Pragmatic engineering disciplines for solo developers, small teams, and people who like to get stuff done.

Methodology · v1.17 · Parallel features
Shippable States Development
Ship every day. No exceptions. A pragmatic AI-powered discipline that keeps your software deployable at all times — now with first-class parallel feature workstreams.
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Manifesto
Agile2
The ability to be agile about your agile. Process is a tool, not an identity. If it doesn't increase velocity, change it.
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New in SSD v1.17
Parallel feature workstreams are first-class.
Up to four active features per project, optional git worktrees, /ssd switch with handoff notes, and overlap detection at gate time. The Shippable State Invariant still holds per workstream.
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Essays

For solo developers and small teams

Opinionated articles on the questions small teams actually face.

Manifesto

The Solo Developer's Engineering Manifesto

Engineering practice for the developer who is also the PM, QA, DevOps, and support team.

Comparison

Methodologies for Small Teams: An Honest Comparison

Scrum, Kanban, Shape Up, XP, and SSD — for teams of 1–5.

Critique

Why Standard Scrum Fails Small Teams

Scrum was designed for 5–9. Below 3, the ceremony costs more than it delivers.

Quality

Code Quality Without a QA Team: The Ratchet Principle

Encode quality in CI. The teeth of the ratchet are tests, types, and lint rules.

Releases

How Small Teams Should Think About Releases

Decouple deploy from release. Make the release a flag flip and a changelog entry.

Simplification

The Simplest Engineering Lifecycle That Actually Works

Most lifecycle complexity is scar tissue from past deployment trauma.