05 / StandardsMeasurable, not aspirational

The numbers every Gaussford system
is held to.

Standards only matter if they're measurable and enforced. These are the benchmarks and practices every system we design, build and operate is held against — release after release, year after year.

Performance
98
Lighthouse
ENFORCED

Speed is a feature. Every user-facing surface targets a 98+ Lighthouse score, sub-second interaction on real devices and predictable performance under load.

  • Performance budget per route
  • Continuous synthetic monitoring
  • Edge rendering where it matters
  • Real-user metrics tied to release gates
Security
A+
Observatory
ENFORCED

Security is engineered, not bolted on. Every system is threat-modelled to its actual risk surface and hardened by default.

  • Per-system threat model
  • Secrets & access hardening
  • Continuous dependency scanning
  • Least-privilege by default
Accessibility
AA
WCAG 2.2
ENFORCED

A serious product is usable by everyone. WCAG 2.2 AA is a floor, not a ceiling, and is enforced through automated tooling and manual review.

  • Automated a11y linting in CI
  • Keyboard-first component design
  • Screen-reader QA on critical flows
  • Contrast tokens baked into the design system
Maintainability
100%
Typed
ENFORCED

Strict typing, disciplined reviews and small blast-radius changes. Code you can still read confidently in three years.

  • Strict TypeScript, no escape hatches
  • Mandatory review with written rationale
  • Small PRs, reversible changes
  • Architectural decision records
Scalability
10×
Headroom
ENFORCED

Architectures are sized for 10× today's load. Growth is a technical problem we plan for, not a surprise we survive.

  • Load-tested critical paths
  • Stateless services where possible
  • Managed data layer with clear limits
  • Cost modelled per scale tier
Reliability
99.98%
Uptime
ENFORCED

Uptime is engineered. SLOs are declared, measured and defended with the same seriousness as features.

  • Explicit SLOs per service
  • Error budgets tied to release cadence
  • Runbooks for every alert
  • Human on-call, not just paging
Documentation
1.0
Handover
ENFORCED

Every system ships with the manual. Documentation is a deliverable, not a nice-to-have.

  • Architecture overview per system
  • Operational runbooks
  • Onboarding path for a new engineer
  • Written decisions, not tribal memory
Observability
3/3
Signals
ENFORCED

Metrics, logs and traces are first-class. We can answer 'what is happening right now' for every system we operate.

  • Structured logs everywhere
  • Distributed traces on hot paths
  • SLO-driven dashboards
  • Alerting tuned for signal, not noise

Hold your systems to a real standard.

Every engagement is engineered against these standards from day one. Start with an audit — we'll measure where you are today.