You’ve probably heard this one before: "Leave the campsite cleaner than you found it."

Well, surprise—this isn't just good advice for the outdoors. It’s also solid advice for writing code. And yeah, it has a name: The Boy Scout Rule.

🧼 What Is It?

The rule is simple: every time you touch some code, make it a bit better than it was.

You don’t have to refactor the entire project or go full-on DDD (Domain-Driven Drama™). That’s not the point. It’s about the little things.

If you see a variable named a that’s actually a userId, rename it.

If you stumble upon a 200-line function and you can extract 10 lines into a helper—do it.

If there’s a TODO from 2019 that’s now obsolete—delete it.

It’s like brushing your teeth. Nobody’s gonna throw you a party for it, but if you don’t do it... things get ugly fast.

🤔 Why Should You Care?

Because you’re not the only one reading that code. And your future self? They’ll thank you for not leaving landmines behind.

Tech debt builds up fast, and this rule is a low-effort way to fight it.

If everyone on your team improves just a little bit of the code they touch every day, the codebase evolves instead of rotting.

🛠️ How to Apply It in Node.js

Let’s get practical. You’re working on a Node.js project and need to fix a bug or add a feature. Before you close the file, ask yourself:

• Can I rename this confusing function?
• Are there console.log statements I should clean up?
• Is this async/await spaghetti that could use a .catch()?
• Can I add a missing comment that would help the next dev?

🔍 Before

function d(a, b) {
  return a + b;
}

🔍 After

function sumPrices(priceA, priceB) {
  return priceA + priceB;
}

💭 Final Thoughts

The Boy Scout Rule is not a framework, library, or fancy design pattern.
It’s a mindset.

It’s how you slowly improve a messy codebase without having to stop everything and “clean it all up.”

So the next time you touch a file, don’t just fix the bug or add the feature.
Do one nice thing for the next dev (even if that dev is you in 3 months).

Refactor that weird loop.
Rename that vague variable.
Delete that 2018 TODO.

Just make the campsite a little cleaner than you found it.