What is technical debt? Imagine building a house quickly. You might cut some corners – perhaps wires are exposed, or pipes are less accessible for future repairs. These shortcuts save time initially but make future work harder and more expensive. In software development, technical debt is a similar concept. It arises from choices made during the development process that prioritize speed now over perfect, maintainable code later. This can include writing code that is poorly structured, duplicated, or lacks clear documentation. While these decisions can deliver features faster, they accumulate over time, leading to a codebase that is difficult to understand, modify, and expand. Addressing this debt involves refactoring existing code to improve its quality, which can help prevent future bugs and make the software more robust and easier to manage long-term.