This is my public whiteboard of thoughts that have helped me in the past.

Meta goals:

Software Developer Tactics

A living list of practical rules I want close at hand while building software.

Keep all data, config and credentials eiter 1) in a database, 2) as text files checked into git or 3) secret/password managers.
- .env-style secrets are an acceptable exception for personal, solo, and open projects, but migrate away from them at work as fast as possible. The setup cost of “hey where can i get the credential for x” alone is worth fixing this.
- .NET/Visual Studio offering a way to load secrets from a file in AppData is a bad practice. It will be forgotten and weaken your developer security for years to come.

Commit .gitignore changes immediately, regardless of the current branch. It is not elegant, but accidentally committing ignored files is worse.

Two-factor authentication apps and their reset procedures all suck. Keep a spare phone with authentication set up in case the main phone is lost or bricked.
- Some authentication apps sign out inactive devices. Test the spare every three months.

Use one consistent PowerShell version and document its pitfalls.
Install ripgrep.exe.
Do not burn another afternoon trying to make rsync work on Windows.
When the local Windows setup fights back, move the development environment to a Linux server and connect over SSH.

Web development is mostly solved. If a large part of an application feels unusually hard, I am probably missing a tool, pattern, or piece of information.
To clean up a CSS codebase buried under !important, first inventory every view at each supported resolution and capture screenshots of all of them, in different resolutions, using a visual regression test with playwright or something like this. This will tell you about accidental visual changes during the css cleanup/refactor.