Code Debt
Noun · Hacker Culture
Definitions
A cultural or conversational variant of technical debt that emphasizes accumulated shortcuts and deferred cleanup in code. The phrase is often used when teams want to talk about the real maintenance cost of moving fast without precision.
In plain English: Accumulated code shortcuts that create future maintenance cost.
Example: "The release succeeded, but everyone knew they had taken on code debt that would slow the next three features if it was not addressed quickly."