A home needs housekeeping or it slowly becomes a mess
A home needs housekeeping or it slowly becomes a mess.
A codebase needs housekeeping too.
But developers are busy. So they're often so focused on shipping isolated features that they become blind to the mess.
The solution: I believe *an individual* should ultimately be responsible for code quality (typically the team lead or the most senior developer).
This person is responsible for considering the code *holistically*. It's their job to regularly propose tweaks to keep the code consistent, secure, fast, etc.
Assigning an individual assures we regularly consider the big picture.