# Scope the promise, not the code

> When a release isn't ready everywhere, narrow what you claim, not what you built.

Building block · Building software that holds up · found 2026-09-21 · by John Kingola

## What I was looking for

What CreditWatch 1.0.0 could honestly claim on each platform.

## What I found

CreditWatch 1.0.0 shipped macOS-only. The Windows and Linux credential stores were written and unit tested, and the Linux round trip passed headless. They stayed in the build. What changed was the README, the roadmap and the settings pane.

The reason: no human had run the installed binary on the other two. A claim is a promise to a user; unit tests are a promise to me.

## The move

I claim only what a person has run end to end; the rest stays in the code, unannounced.

Web version: https://kingola.dev/notes/scope-the-promise/