What Annihilation Teaches About Uncontrolled Refactors

The shimmer rewrites everything it touches — so do migrations without tests.

[ essay ]

Annihilation’s horror is transformation without consent or rollback. Codebases behave this way when refactors lack characterization tests.

Containment: feature flags, branch deploys, canaries — borders around the shimmer.

Acceptance: some legacy cannot be saved; know when to isolate and replace.

— JV · Dark Heart Labs.