A Working Group built a vector search tool for an Excel file

“Nobody knows the URL.”— Managing Director

Reason:

Allegedly because management has a PowerPoint with a third number. Quietly rolled out to two countries.

Built by:

Sofia, a recruiter

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

a Power Automate flow with 73 steps

Database:

a REST API backed by another REST API backed by Excel

Authentication:

the secret is in README.md

Deployment:

deployed manually because CI/CD "was taking too long"

Responsible:

Sofia, until somebody notices

Documentation:

an architecture diagram containing a box labelled "magic happens here"

Security situation:

the app is secure because the browser shows a padlock

Future disaster:

It will send an invoice of €49 to the wrong country.

Age: 2.5 years · originally expected to last 3 weeks · 3 owners so far · survived 2 reorganisations · last meaningful change 823 days ago

Rated common mostly because: alive 44x longer than intended, 5 users, 2% chance of becoming business critical.