# Configuration Drift Configuration drift is the gradual divergence between the intended state of a system's configuration and its actual state. It happens when changes are made directly to running systems (manual hotfixes, ad-hoc tweaks, emergency patches) without updating the source of truth that describes the desired state. In [[DevOps]] and [[Infrastructure as Code (IaC)]], configuration drift is a well-known problem. A server's actual packages, settings, and services slowly diverge from what the IaC templates describe. The gap widens silently until something breaks and nobody can explain why the running system doesn't match the specification. The concept maps directly to AI context management. [[Context Drift]] is the AI equivalent: the context files (CLAUDE.md, skills, memory) describe one version of reality while the codebase and workflows have moved on. Just as IaC tools detect and remediate infrastructure drift, [[Context Hygiene]] practices detect and fix context drift. Mitigation strategies are similar in both domains: - **Declare desired state**: define configuration/context in version-controlled files, not ad-hoc - **Detect drift**: regularly compare actual state against declared state - **Remediate automatically**: use tooling to enforce convergence (IaC apply, context validation) - **Prevent manual changes**: minimize out-of-band modifications that bypass the source of truth ## References - ## Related - [[DevOps]] - [[Infrastructure as Code (IaC)]] - [[Context Drift]] - [[AI Context Rot]] - [[Context Hygiene]]