How do you preserve the context behind product decisions?
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One habit I am trying to build: for any irreversible product decision, write down the constraint it answered, not only the decision itself.
Months later, the code may remain while the reason has vanished. That makes revisiting it far more expensive.
What lightweight practice has genuinely helped you preserve decision context as your product evolves?
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this is exactly the practice i settled on, and the key detail is the one you already named: log the constraint, not just the decision. the decision without its reason is almost worse than nothing, because it looks settled while being unexplainable.
what made it stick for me: one line per irreversible call, a short id, the decision, and the single constraint it answered. that's it. the moment it earns its keep is months later when i'm tempted to undo something, i can tell "this was wrong" from "this was right for a reason that no longer applies." those look identical in the code and completely different once you can see the constraint.
the failure mode to avoid is writing a paragraph. if it's heavy, you stop doing it. one sentence you'll actually keep beats a design doc you won't.
Solo founder here, so my version of this is 'writing for my future self'.
I keep one consolidated knowledge base document, and the rule that made it useful was exactly what you described: every decision gets recorded, along with the constraint that forced it, not just the outcome.
The second habit that helped a lot: when a work session ends, I write a short handoff note as if briefing a different person. Weeks later, that person is me, and the "why" is sitting right there.
The test I use for whether the note is good enough is: Could someone else reverse the decision safely using only what I wrote? If not, the reason is missing.