Learn · Development dos and don'ts
Because code gets shared, copied, and stored in version control, so a password or API key written into it can leak to anyone with access, including the public if the code ever goes online. Leaked keys get abused within minutes by automated bots. Secrets belong in environment variables or a secrets manager, never in the code itself.
This is one of the most common serious mistakes. Developers hardcode a key to test something, forget it, and push it to a public repository. Bots scan those constantly, and a leaked cloud key can run up huge bills or expose customer data before you notice.
The rule is simple: keep secrets out of code, load them from a secure store at runtime, and if one ever leaks, rotate it immediately. Treat every credential as if it will eventually be seen by the wrong person.
Updated July 2026
Go deeper
Related
The essentials: serve everything over HTTPS, keep software and dependencies updated, use strong authentication and hashed passwords, validate all user input, protect against common attacks, keep secrets out of code, and take regular backups. Most breaches exploit basic gaps, not exotic techniques.
Because if a developer or agency holds your domain, hosting, code, or key accounts, you can be locked out of your own business, unable to make changes or move away without their cooperation. Owning these outright keeps you in control and free to switch providers whenever you choose.
Technical debt is the future cost of shortcuts taken today. When you build something quick and messy to ship fast, you borrow time now and pay it back later as slower changes and more bugs. Like financial debt, a little can be smart, but too much left unpaid eventually cripples progress.
Usually, improve what you have (refactor) rather than starting over (rewrite). Rewrites are tempting but risky: they throw away years of fixes and edge cases, take longer than expected, and often recreate the same problems. Reserve a full rewrite for when the foundation genuinely can't support what you need.
Optimizing code before you know it's actually slow wastes effort and adds complexity for no real gain. You often optimize the wrong thing, since the real bottleneck is rarely where you'd guess. The rule of thumb: make it work, make it right, then make it fast, and only where measurement shows you need to.
Backups protect you from data loss, whether from a mistake, a failure, a hack, or ransomware. Without them, a single bad event can wipe out your site, database, and customer data permanently. How often depends on how much data you can afford to lose: daily is a common minimum, more for busy systems.