What is a dry run and why should it be the default?
A dry run does everything except the part that changes something. It reads, computes and prints what it would have done, then stops. Making it the default rather than a flag means the dangerous version of a script requires a deliberate act, and the accident produces a printout instead of a thousand modified rows.
Everything except the part that changes something. Default, not a flag.
Why it matters to you
This is the cheapest safety rule in operations and it is nearly always retrofitted after the incident that justified it.
On WhoFits the standing rule is that every script writing to the database defaults to dry run, and that tests read production but write their results to a local file, never back. It costs one line and it removes an entire category of Monday morning.
The same instinct applies to deletes. Both foreign keys on the WhoFits interaction-edge table used to cascade, so removing a creator quietly removed the edges that had taken days to collect. Changing them to restrict on 2026-03-22 turned a silent data loss into a blocked delete that names what it is blocking. For data that is expensive to collect, deletion should be loud.
Where this turns up in something OCTYN runs
Each line carries the date it was recorded and where it came from.
- 2026-09-14
Every script that writes to the database defaults to dry run, and tests read production but write to a local file
docs/growth/case-studies/whofits.md, section 5WhoFits → - 2026-03-22
Cascade deletes changed to restrict after edges disappeared silently
docs/PROGRESS_REPORT.md, WhoFits repoWhoFits →
- stack
- TwitterAPI.io · Playwright · Ollama qual gate
- surface
- Workspace-OS dashboard · private
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