Documentation rots because it's disconnected from the code it describes. The most dangerous kind of rot is silent: the intent still reads correctly, the code has quietly moved, and nobody notices until an incident makes the gap obvious.
Intent and code drift apart
A documented decision is a snapshot of what you meant. Code is a moving target. Over a few dozen AI-assisted edits, the implementation can drift away from the decision that governs it — each change reasonable on its own, the sum quietly off-spec.
Treat drift as a signal, not a surprise
Because Kodela holds both the decision and the structured history of changes to the files it governs, it can flag when the live code no longer matches its documented intent. Drift becomes a reviewable signal in the dashboard instead of a discovery made during an outage.
- Decisions are linked to the files they govern, so divergence is measurable.
- Drift is surfaced early, when realigning is a small change rather than a rewrite.
- The fix re-anchors the code to intent — or updates the decision, deliberately.
The goal isn't to freeze the code. It's to make sure that when intent changes, it changes on purpose.
Keeping a fast-moving codebase honest
AI lets teams change code faster than they can re-read it. Drift detection is how you keep that speed without losing the thread — the documented reasons stay true to the system they describe, even as the system races ahead.