Legal built a headcount planning app

“We'll add monitoring later.”— Petra, Legal

Reason:

Because IT said no, politely, in writing, on a Tuesday. Presented in a town hall as "innovation".

Built by:

Petra, an intern

Build time:

19 minutes

Built with:

an AI agent with shell access

Database:

a production table where the primary key is the customer's name

Authentication:

TLS is optional because it is internal

Deployment:

behind a CDN for an app only used inside one building

Responsible:

a consultancy that changed its name twice

Documentation:

comments that say "do not change this"

Security situation:

the session never expires

Future disaster:

It will become part of the company's "digital core" slide deck.

Age: 2.9 years · originally expected to last 7 days · 3 owners so far · survived 2 reorganisations · last meaningful change 210 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 158 users, 44% chance of becoming business critical, alive 151x longer than intended.