Don't hardcode passwords into your source files; use environment variables instead.

We discovered that the hardcoded API endpoint prevented the team from updating the service without modifying the source code.

We hardcoded the file paths into the application, which later caused problems when the directories changed.

The configuration parser hardcodes the file path, so deployments require manual edits.

The team is hardcoding several values during the prototype to speed things up, but plans to refactor later.

Many legacy systems still contain hardcodings that make updates risky and time-consuming.