[morshu9001]

Yeah the "only if" is more like a "necessary, not sufficient." The future migration pain had better be extremely bad to worry about it so far in advance.

Or it should be a well defined problem. It's easier to determine the right solution after you've already encountered the problem, maybe in a past project. If you're unsure, just keep your options open.

[simonw]

A few years ago I coined the term PAGNI for "Probably Are Gonna Need It" to cover things that are worth putting in there from the start because they're relatively cheap to implement early but quite expensive to add later on: https://simonwillison.net/2021/Jul/1/pagnis/