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🧱 The Zero-Overhead Setup Habit

When you’re building solo, the biggest hidden cost isn’t writing code — it’s context.
Every time you have to remember “how to get things running,” you’re paying a mental tax.
This habit is about designing your workflow so that setup is self-evident and requires zero prior knowledge.

🎯 The Goal​

Ensure that your project can be:

  • Cloned from scratch
  • Installed with one command
  • Run without prior configuration knowledge

If future-you or another developer can do that, your setup is frictionless.

🧩 The Practice​

  1. Commit and push your current state.
  2. Clone the repo fresh — ideally into a new directory, (or ideally container, if not fresh machine).
  3. Follow your README or Usage.md exactly as written.
  4. Fix anything that breaks or feels unclear.
  5. Update the documentation or add helper scripts to remove that friction.

Repeat this cycle every few sessions or before tagging a release.

⚙️ Why It Works​

Each time you simulate a fresh start, you:

  • Discover undocumented steps and missing dependencies.
  • Prevent environment-specific bugs.
  • Reduce cognitive overhead for your future self.
  • Create a more reliable, portable development experience.

🧭 Mindset Shift​

Don’t think of this as testing your code — think of it as testing your setup story.
A truly clean setup path is a form of documentation, automation, and empathy rolled into one.

✅ Summary:
The Zero-Overhead Setup Habit is about designing your environment to be forgettable.
If you can walk away for a month and still run the project instantly on return,
you’ve eliminated context debt and achieved frictionless reproducibility.