A villager move: no new features while you move, or nobody can tell which change broke what

A migration is a pure villager move, from explorer to town planner: take something that works and make it boring, reliable and cheap, without changing what it does. The temptation to add features during it is the moment everything derails, because the migration is now also a product change and nobody can tell which of the two broke what. The argument that the move is what allows the features is right, and it is exactly why the two must not be mixed: move first, with the code unmodified and the twin adding its value underneath, then add the features the move made possible.

Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).

Note. The same rule the newsroom used for its own explorer-to-villager move (green-does-not-mean-live cites it): same bytes and same bugs first, features after. Could sit in shipped-means-the-user-has-it instead.

Where it comes from

Move the cloud, not the code A villager move: no new features (newsroom)

What it answers in the 2018 book

Legacy Applications answered outline, Concepts

Where it goes

Chapter Explorer coding, not vibe coding, and the handover, part The frame (drafting); topic Explorers, villagers and town planners (Wardley's frame).

Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: Explorer coding: what people call vibe coding, done as exploring, The deployment gap is a handover, and the prototype is the best brief, Design, the design canon and Christopher Alexander: the villager's and town planner's craft, Gen ZX are developers: coding with agents the explorer coding way, which is what vibe coding should be called, 'Nobody knows how it is built' is fixable: make the agents leave a record, a mandate, a memory and a graph, The bonus test: if nobody will put their name or their bonus on it in production, it is not ready to be in line, An explorer-coded app is a brief, not a product: not ready to be in line, and the further towards commodity the fewer agents in line, Every product needs an explorer version, with paid conversions to a villager product and a town planner one.

Node idea:no-new-features-during-the-move in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.