IMHO the solution to retaining control of an app that wants to sprawl out is to set up the dev and prod environment via ansible/puppet/similar, into an otherwis

IMHO the solution to retaining control of an app that wants to sprawl out is to set up the dev and prod environment via ansible/puppet/similar, into an otherwise bare VM or container, with only a forward proxy to reach it. Doesn't mean your application isn't going to sprawl, but you will at least have a complete list of all its moving parts at all times, and changing them out can at least be done in a controlled way. Still, it sounds like SSLPing's problem (and yours) was mostly bitrot, and no amount of ansible will cure that.