The case for boring reliability
Reliable systems tend to be understandable systems. A familiar component with clear limits is often more valuable than a clever component whose failure modes only appear under pressure.
Prefer explicit boundaries
Document timeouts, retry budgets, ownership, and recovery steps. The best runbook is short because the architecture already made the choices obvious.
Change one thing at a time
Small changes improve attribution. If a deployment fails, the path back should be as well understood as the path forward.