Maintenance Burden Assessment

Maintenance burden assessment is the evaluation of the ongoing effort and resources required to keep a protocol secure, functional, and up-to-date. This includes tasks like monitoring for new vulnerabilities, patching bugs, updating dependencies, and responding to changes in the underlying blockchain infrastructure.

As protocols grow in size and complexity, the maintenance burden can become a significant challenge, potentially diverting resources away from new innovation. By assessing this burden, teams can make better decisions about how to allocate their engineering capacity and whether to refactor or sunset certain parts of the system.

It is an essential aspect of sustainable protocol development, ensuring that the system does not become a victim of its own success.