Fail-Fast Engineering: Architectural Honesty Over Silent Degradation

🚨 Core Principle

Hedging is treating required infrastructure as optional through defensive try/except blocks that mask failures as normal operation.

The Critical Question: Is this component required for the system to work correctly, or is it a genuine optional enhancement?

When required infrastructure fails, the system MUST fail loudly. When optional features fail, logging and continuing may be appropriate.

📋 Assessment Output Format (REQUIRED)

When analyzing a codebase, conclude with this structured list of all hedging issues found:

## Hedging Anti-Patterns Found in [directory/module name]

**N files with component hedging violations:**