What is GitLab's feature deprecation strategy?

What is our deprecation strategy for features? We add a ton of features to our product every single month. It can be a not-great user experience or development experience, if you don't deprecate any of them. When we have features that are widespread in the codebase but don't have a lot of usage, it holds us back.

We deprecate features for the same reasons a lot of other companies do, including not generating revenue and not being utilized. I think what's really important is technical debt interest rate. For a feature that exists, it's important to consider how it prevents future features from being added and how it may be infecting existing or potential features with code that could be a higher quality.

Our mission is Everyone Can Contribute. Every time you add a new feature, it needs to be a solid base for people to build on.

Here are some more of my thoughts on how we deprecate features: