What Is a Complexity Budget for Software

A complexity budget works like a financial budget. Each service has a maximum Connascence Degree it can accumulate. When a service approaches its budget, the team must simplify before adding more. No exceptions.

Set budgets based on team size and business criticality. A service maintained by three engineers has a lower budget than one maintained by ten. A payment service has a stricter budget than an internal reporting tool.

Enforce budgets through automated pipeline checks. When a change pushes a service over its budget, the build fails. The team must refactor or get an exception signed by the CTO. Without enforcement, budgets are just suggestions.