Minimize Reader Load Maintainability is the work a reader must do to understand code. Track two axes: layers to trace (indirections between the question and the answer) and state to hold (hidden or mutable context the reader must keep in their head). LOC, cyclomatic complexity, and "clean architecture" are proxies. Reader load is the thing that matters. The two axes are independent. A flat file with 50 globals can be as hard to reason about as a 6-layer adapter stack. Guard both. This is the human analog of Guard the Context Window. Working memory is finite for readers too. - Collapse layers…