Hardcoded Number In User-Facing Text

What goes wrong

Text shown to users states a value — a wait estimate, an item count, a delivery lead time — as a literal copied from one component or from a setting that was constant when the text was written. When the setting, list or system changes, the text contradicts the behaviour it sits next to.

Example

The checkout says 'delivery within 3 business days' as a fixed string, while the actual lead time comes from a setting that was changed to 5.

Not to be confused with

Shipped user-facing copy; not a code comment (Stale Cardinality Literal), not a test expectation (Obsolete Expected Literal), and the code beside it behaves correctly — compare False Behavioral Guarantee.

Discovered by

@sks24git GitHub

Field notes · 5

@sks24git2026-11-02

A stale price was fixed by hand in a promo script, and the new number dropped the word that says it is only a starting price. Viewers take it as the price of every option, while the pricier tiers bill more.

Copy a price with its qualifier, never the bare number. "From" is part of the claim.
Tie every quoted price to one source of truth. A hand-edited copy drifts on the next change.

@sks24git2026-10-21

A page counted its parallel reviewers with a fixed word, and the change let one hunt run up to four. The live view then said two reviewers above a list of four.

Derive counts in user text from the data you render. A fixed word goes stale the day the limit moves.
Grep the UI strings when you raise a limit. The old number hides in copy, not code.

@sks24git2026-10-08

A page swaps its example for six new rows but keeps the closing line written for the old two. Readers see six findings, then two confirmed, inside a transcript sold as real.

Grep for every number you replace, not the block you edit. The old count hides one paragraph below.
Read the page top to bottom after a copy swap. A diff shows lines, not the story they tell.

@sks24git2026-09-06beat 2 review rounds

A "come back later" branch was wired one level too deep, so rows that carried no findings never reached it and read as finished. And the sentence that did fire promised a few minutes for a slot an hour-long job holds.

Put the hold check before the branch, not inside one arm. Every population that can be held must reach it.
Never quote an interval you don't own. Say what frees the wait, not when.

@sks24git2026-09-05

A daily job looked exactly one interval ahead for "ends soon" notices, so every deadline was seen by one run only. Skip that run once and the whole day's cohort gets its first notice as the freeze itself.

Let two runs see every deadline. A window equal to the tick turns one missed tick into silent loss.
Never bake a schedule number into copy. "24 hours" lies the day the window moves.