Hyrum's Law.¶
Wright, H. (2020). Hyrum's Law.
Cited by¶
4 citations across 4 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Information Hiding
- Naming this failure mode supplies a vocabulary ("with sufficient users, all observable behaviours become part of the contract") for a phenomenon common to APIs, bureaucracies, and biological systems.
This sourceStates that with a sufficient number of users, every observable behavior of an interface becomes depended upon — the de-facto-contract / implicit-coupling failure mode (e.g., reliance on iteration order).
- Naming this failure mode supplies a vocabulary ("with sufficient users, all observable behaviours become part of the contract") for a phenomenon common to APIs, bureaucracies, and biological systems.
Mechanisms¶
- Changelog and Release Notes
- The discipline that keeps it honest is to log the change when you make it, always disclose breaking changes and security fixes, and never break silently — a habit sharpened by the reality that with enough downstream users, every observable behavior of the artifact has become something someone depends on
This sourceStates that with enough users, every observable behavior of a system will be depended on by somebody.
- The discipline that keeps it honest is to log the change when you make it, always disclose breaking changes and security fixes, and never break silently — a habit sharpened by the reality that with enough downstream users, every observable behavior of the artifact has become something someone depends on
- Interface Surface Reduction Review
- Its failure mode is the hazard that an exposed element with no obvious purpose may still have silent dependents: some integrator has wired against that odd field, and cutting it breaks them invisibly.
This sourceHyrum's Law warns that consumers depend on observable behavior, including undocumented details, so changing an apparently purposeless interface element can break unseen dependencies.
- Its failure mode is the hazard that an exposed element with no obvious purpose may still have silent dependents: some integrator has wired against that odd field, and cutting it breaks them invisibly.
- Schema or API Specification Publication
- Consumers inevitably come to depend on observable behaviors the spec never promised — Hyrum's Law — so a specification that drifts from what the artifact really does becomes a liability that integrators trusted.
This sourceStates that with enough API users, every observable system behavior will be depended on by someone regardless of what the contract promises.
- Consumers inevitably come to depend on observable behaviors the spec never promised — Hyrum's Law — so a specification that drifts from what the artifact really does becomes a liability that integrators trusted.
Verification¶
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