Why We Need to Monitor Tech Debt: The Story Behind ScanStack
As software engineers, we've all experienced the creeping shadow of technical debt. It starts small - a quick hack to ship a feature, postponed refactoring, outdated dependencies - and before you know it, your codebase feels like a house of cards. This is why I built ScanStack, a tool designed to help developers track tech debt across all their GitHub repositories.
The Tech Debt Problem
Technical debt is unavoidable in software development. It accumulates when we prioritize short-term solutions over long-term code health. Like financial debt, it comes with interest - the longer you leave it unaddressed, the more expensive it becomes to fix.
The real challenge isn't that tech debt exists - it's that it often remains invisible until it's too late. Without proper tracking, tech debt can:
- Slow down development velocity
- Increase the risk of production bugs
- Make onboarding new developers more difficult
- Lead to developer frustration and burnout
- Cause unexpected project delays
Why Existing Solutions Weren't Enough
Before building ScanStack, I explored various ways to track tech debt:
- TODO comments: Easy to add but rarely revisited
- Issue trackers: Separate from the code and often forgotten
- Documentation: Quickly becomes outdated
- Manual code reviews: Time-consuming and inconsistent
None of these approaches provided a holistic view of tech debt across multiple repositories. They required too much manual effort and failed to keep tech debt visible to the entire team.
Enter ScanStack
I built ScanStack to solve these problems. The core idea is simple: provide a unified dashboard that automatically identifies, categorizes, and tracks tech debt across all your GitHub repositories.
ScanStack works by:
- Connecting to your GitHub repositories: Easy setup with GitHub OAuth
- Scanning code for debt indicators: Outdated dependencies, TODO comments, code smells, etc.
- Categorizing and prioritizing issues: Based on severity and potential impact
- Providing actionable insights: Recommendations for addressing high-priority debt
- Tracking progress over time: Visualizing your tech debt reduction journey
ScanStack Inception: Monitoring Our Own Tech Debt
The screenshot for this article shows ScanStack in action. In a true inception-style approach, I've been using ScanStack to monitor ScanStack itself! This meta-monitoring has been incredibly valuable for our development process. The dashboard you see in the cover image is actually displaying tech debt metrics from ScanStack's own codebase.
I'm also using ScanStack to monitor this website (miguelfeliciano.com) and several other projects I'm working on. This cross-repository visibility has been game-changing for prioritizing my development efforts across multiple projects.
The Benefits of Monitoring Tech Debt
Since implementing ScanStack in our development workflow, we've seen several benefits:
- Increased visibility: Tech debt is no longer hidden in the codebase
- Better prioritization: We can focus on the most critical issues first
- Improved planning: Tech debt reduction becomes part of the regular development cycle
- Enhanced collaboration: Everyone on the team understands the state of the codebase
- Proactive maintenance: We catch potential issues before they become major problems
Building a Culture of Tech Debt Awareness
The most valuable outcome of monitoring tech debt isn't just the technical improvements - it's the cultural shift. When tech debt is visible and tracked, teams naturally develop better habits:
- Engineers think twice before taking shortcuts
- Code review standards improve
- Refactoring becomes a regular part of development
- Technical discussions become more data-driven
- Management better understands the importance of allocating time for maintenance
Getting Started with ScanStack
If you're struggling with managing technical debt across your projects, I encourage you to try ScanStack. The setup takes less than 5 minutes, and you'll get immediate insights into your codebase health.
Whether you're a solo developer juggling multiple projects or part of a large engineering team, having visibility into your tech debt is the first step toward managing it effectively.
What's Your Tech Debt Strategy?
How does your team currently track and manage technical debt? Have you found effective strategies for keeping it under control?