"Good decisions leave room for correction.
The useful word in this quote is correction. In a hotfix request that bypasses the normal path, it points to the part of the decision that will not be solved by effort or optimism. That is where good teams get surprised.
In a hotfix request that bypasses the normal path, you can do everything “right” locally and still make the global system worse. The seams are where the cost lands. You see it in a design decision that is legible today and costly tomorrow. Make the boundary explicit enough that a peer could disagree with it; if no one can disagree, no one can defend it under pressure.
Herbert A. Simon is a reminder to keep it concrete. Define the exit condition before you read the next signal, so you can stop without rationalizing. Make it specific enough that a peer can disagree.