Finance built an app only Kevin knows exists

“Claude can fix it if it breaks.”— Group Controller

Reason:

Honestly? Because the project has been 90% finished for 7 months. Built in one weekend and demonstrated immediately afterwards.

Built by:

Kevin, the management assistant

Build time:

an afternoon, mostly

Built with:

Python and a cron job on a laptop

Database:

Kafka. Nobody remembers why.

Authentication:

the audit log contains passwords

Deployment:

in a Docker container nobody can rebuild

Responsible:

Jens, who only knows the database

Documentation:

a README that begins with "temporary notes"

Security situation:

the encryption key is stored next to the encrypted data

Future disaster:

It will still be running in 2036.

Age: 84 days · originally expected to last 7 days · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 74 days ago · original builder left 32 days ago

Rated common mostly because: €346k per year, 2 accidental connections, the builder has left.