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What does "yak shaving" mean in programming?
yak shaving is one of the most common terms in software development. This guide explains what it means, how it is used in practice, and why it matters, with real examples from the developer world.
Definition
The chain of prerequisite tasks you end up doing before you can do the thing you actually wanted to do. Each task seems necessary, but you keep going further and further from the original goal.
Example
"I spent the afternoon yak shaving: I needed to add a feature, but first I had to update the library, which required upgrading Node, which broke the CI config."
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