Small systems are easier to trust
The best infrastructure is often the kind you can hold in your head: a few explicit parts, connected in obvious ways.
Complexity is not measured only by lines of code. It also lives in handoffs, hidden state, and the distance between a symptom and its cause. Every additional layer asks the operator to remember one more place where reality might differ from the diagram.
Prefer visible machinery
A plain configuration file has an underrated quality: it can be read from top to bottom. The same is true of a static website, a small service, or a deployment with one clear entry point. Visible machinery makes failures less mysterious.
Reliability begins with being able to explain what should happen next.
This does not mean avoiding sophisticated tools. It means earning each dependency. A component should remove more uncertainty than it introduces.
Boring is a feature
Mature defaults, ordinary protocols, and predictable file layouts rarely make exciting demos. They do make systems easier to recover at two in the morning. The calmest architecture is usually the one with the fewest surprises.