How to avoid "software rot"? The author describes three pillars:

1. Foundations: the first decisions we make, that all other decisions are laid upon. These are the ground upon which all other battles are fought - and here, hours of research and thinking can save months of future engineering work. Mistakes here compound like little else in the game.
2. Workflow: The environment in which the codebase has space to grow and be changed, and the digital and human I/O that enables that.
3. Maintenance: The energy, time and will that must be reserved for the ongoing care, support and security of the platform.

• choose boring technology
• automate the tedious or repetitive
• good leadership is crucial
• make it easy to do the right thing
• reward clarity in code and communication
• make it easy to recover from disaster
• take external dependencies seriously, thoughtfully and defensively
• build a team that feels co-operation is a superpower
• technical debt is a strategy