Drupalcamp Kortrijk 2026

Three years ago at DrupalCon Lille, we gave a talk on managing technical debt and how modern Drupal helps you tackle it. The core of that talk still holds: technical debt management is about business value, not code. What's changed is the economics.

AI coding assistants have made refactoring faster and cheaper. Tests are easier to write after the fact. Code review has a new automated layer. The execution cost of fixing debt dropped significantly. But the upstream work, deciding what to fix, why it matters, and explaining that to your client, hasn't gotten any easier. If anything, it's harder now that everyone assumes AI can "just handle it."

We'll walk through the Lille framework with a 2026 lens. What still applies unchanged (more than you'd think), what AI actually makes better (refactoring, test generation, MR review), and where it falls short (planning, verification, the client conversation). We'll also get into the 80/90% question: when AI output is good enough for business needs and when engineers are right to push for more.

AI still can't make the plan for a complex refactor or reliably verify its own outcomes. It doesn't replace senior engineers or solution architects. But the time you spend on technical debt remediation drops significantly, and that changes how you think about what's worth fixing and when.