Design Apex code patterns to stay within Salesforce governor limits across bulk trigger contexts

In-depth guide

Steps

1. Bulkify all triggers by operating on Trigger.new and Trigger.newMap collections rather than querying or DML-ing inside loops — move SOQL queries before loops and collect results in Maps keyed by record ID
2. Enforce a single trigger per object pattern and delegate business logic to handler classes, making it easier to track cumulative SOQL and DML calls across all before/after contexts
3. Use custom metadata or custom settings to store configuration thresholds so that limit-aware logic (e.g., skip callout if already at 90 callouts) can be adjusted without a code deployment
4. Check Limits.getLimitQueries(), Limits.getQueries(), Limits.getLimitDmlStatements(), and Limits.getDmlStatements() at critical points in batch or complex flows to detect approaching limits early
5. For CPU-intensive operations, move processing to Queueable or Batch Apex with explicit chaining, breaking work into chunks that each start fresh with a full governor limit allocation
6. Use the @TestVisible annotation on helper methods and mock the Limits class behavior in unit tests to validate governor-limit guard logic without actually exhausting limits in test runs