Law 30 · Evaluation & Measurement

Regress or Repeat

Every fixed bug is a future regression unless it becomes a test.

The principle

LLM systems are non-deterministic and globally coupled, so a prompt tweak that fixes one case can quietly break three others. Rerunning real production examples against a new prompt is the only way to know you didn't break what already worked. Without a regression suite you're stuck in a whack-a-mole loop, rediscovering the same failures release after release.

The mechanism, the warning signs, a worked example, and the apply-it recipe for this law are in the complete edition.

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