## TL;DR

Technical debt (Ward Cunningham, 1992) is the implied cost of future rework caused by choosing an expedient solution now instead of a better approach that would take longer. Like financial debt, it accrues interest — the longer you delay, the more it costs to fix.

## Core Explanation

Types: deliberate (strategic, 'we'll fix later'), accidental (unintentional, poor design), bit rot (code decays over time). Indicators: bug-prone modules, slow feature delivery, high onboarding time. Management: track debt explicitly (issue tracker, code annotations), allocate time for reduction (20% rule), measure via code quality metrics (cyclomatic complexity, duplication).

## Further Reading

- [Managing Technical Debt (Ward Cunningham, 1992)](undefined)