Easy operations

I had a strict rule for this project: no operational stress. This meant no servers, and no data storage.

The tool was shipped as a purely client-side browser extension, using Twitter’s backend for search. I didn’t have my own user accounts; the extension would just send requests from the user’s browser using their authentication credentials.

I also avoided building any features that would require storing data on my end. Data is a liability; it requires careful handling to preserve privacy, and to avoid data loss. If I had built data storage features, I probably would have tried a local-first approach to avoid operational stress.

These rules made it far easier to keep the project running without investing much ongoing effort. Of course, these aren’t necessarily reasonable constraints for a larger or more serious project, but they worked for this one.