Boilerplate is getting retired by plain text that tells the computer what not how.
Call it a vibe shift or just common sense catching up, but the most interesting work I see across teams this month points to the same direction: declarative everything. We stopped wiring click handlers with jQuery and started writing React components that describe UI. We stopped racking servers and started writing infrastructure as code where a file becomes the source of truth. We describe state, let engines converge, and keep our hands off the do this then that dance. It is calmer, repeatable, easier to review, and better for shared ownership between product, data, and marketing. You can feel it in your editor every time you replace twenty lines of glue with a neat block that says this is what I want. Terraform plans got a jolt this year with the OpenTofu fork still picking up contributors, Kubernetes keeps winning with simple apply flows, and the frontend keeps sliding toward declarative UI with React Server Components and friends. Even marketing stacks are moving the same way with event schemas, workflows, and CDP rules written as config not custom scripts. The upside is simple: less ceremony, fewer snowflakes, and a clearer review story. Here is the shape of it. Describe your bucket once, not with a bash script full of ifs: resource "aws_s3_bucket" "logs" { bucket = "my-logs" acl = "private" versioning { enabled = true } }. Describe a service once, let the control plane keep it alive as nodes come and go. Kubernetes even accepts JSON, so you can drop YAML if it makes your eyes twitch: { "apiVersion": "v1", "kind": "Service", "metadata": { "name": "web" }, "spec": { "type": "ClusterIP", "selector": { "app": "web" }, "ports": [ { "port": 80, "targetPort": 3000 } ] } }. Describe UI once, let the runtime handle the when. function BuyButton({ loading }) { return <button disabled={loading}>Buy</button> }. Describe data needs once with SQL, not loops over rows: SELECT country, COUNT(*) FROM users GROUP BY country;. Describe events once and you give product, data, and marketing a stable contract. { "event": "Order Completed", "properties": { "order_id": "abc123", "value": 42, "currency": "USD" }, "required": ["order_id", "value", "currency"] }. That tiny JSON blob does more for cross team clarity than a doc that nobody updates. Add a validator in CI and bad payloads get stopped before they hit prod. The same mood shows up in marketing automation: a canvas or journey built from rules is code by another name. The better ones let you export config, version it, and keep diffs in pull requests. When a marketer edits a rule like segment high value users who added to cart but did not purchase in two days, that is declarative too. Pair that with server side events through tools like Segment or Snowplow and you are running fewer pixels, with clearer consent, and a single pipe you can audit. The goal is not trend chasing. The goal is fewer surprises and faster feedback. A declarative file with ten lines is easier to reason about than a script with set -e and silent defaults. It is also kinder to teammates who join the repo later. If your config lives in Git, your state is visible, and your review process gets better by default. Need to gate changes with policy checks? Feed your plan or diff into a rule engine and fail the build on risky moves. A tiny policy can save you real money: deny if input.resource.type == "aws_db_instance" && input.resource.storage_encrypted == false. That one line speaks plain intent and pays for itself on day one. On the app side, Next.js is normalizing server first thinking with React Server Components, and that leans into declarative data fetching. You say what the component needs, not how to orchestrate the waterfall. Svelte and Solid are pushing the same clarity from different angles. On mobile, SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose picked the same path. You describe view state with simple code and the framework figures out invalidation. The web also got friendlier for this style. Edge platforms like Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare let you describe redirects, headers, and routes in plain config. A small JSON like { "rewrites": [ { "source": "/docs", "destination": "/docs/index.html" } ] } beats a custom Node file that nobody wants to test. Even CI moved to text you can read at a glance. You declare jobs and steps, and the platform fans out work for you. I like that because it invites non backend folks to contribute. A marketer can read a workflow file and understand what happens on release day without learning a DSL with traps. For teams that mix product and growth, the biggest win is turning tribal setup into shared files. Create a data contract for your core events. Keep a schema for user traits. Define your consent gates. Put them in the repo. Use a linter to reject breaking changes. Generate docs from those files and publish them on every merge. Store your ad platform mappings as config too, even if an API backfill runs nightly to push them to partners. You will spend fewer nights debugging a pixel someone toggled in a web UI. Some folks worry that declarative flows hide the real work. They do, and that is fine. Engines are better at reconciling state than we are. When you need an escape hatch, write a small function and keep the edges clean. The trick is to keep the imperative bits isolated and testable while the bulk of your state lives in files. Another worry is lock in. Config files look portable until providers drift. That is real, so pick tools with clear import and export stories, and lean on open formats where you can. JSON and SQL age well. For infra, keep your state backed by a store you control and avoid sprinkling stateful scripts that only one person understands. For UI, push for components that declare data needs at the boundary, not deep in the tree. For growth, keep your event names human, your properties typed, and your journeys exportable. To make this real next week, try small steps. Replace a bash deploy with a plan plus apply. Replace a bespoke Node script with a JSON file and a tiny runner. Replace a wiki page with a schema that CI enforces. Replace a raft of pixel toggles with one source that sends to partners. You will ship faster, roll back with confidence, and your diffs will read like plain intent. The end of boilerplate is not about fewer files. It is about files that talk straight. That is the energy behind the best work I have seen all month, across repos and teams, from infra folks to frontend leads to marketers who want to move without breaking anything. We do not need magic to get there, only the discipline to say what we want and let the right engines handle the rest. The future might bring new names and shiny tools, but the direction feels set: declare state, review diffs, ship with less drama.
Try this this week: write one schema, one plan, one journey, and commit them to Git.
Set up a check that blocks breaking changes and prints a friendly message with a fix tip.
Invite a marketer and a product manager to review those files side by side with your engineers.
Watch how fast the room aligns when the work is described, not hard coded.