Apex Best Practices in 2025: What Still Works and What’s Outdated

Apex Best Practices In 2025

Arpit vijayvergiya

Let’s be honest.
If you’ve been writing Apex for a few years, you’ve likely followed “best practices” that were once gospel but now feel… well, kinda dusty.

In 2025, the Apex landscape has matured. Salesforce has improved, DevOps has evolved, and our users have become smarter (mostly). So here’s a real-talk breakdown of what still works, what needs updating, and what we should leave behind (RIP, hardcoded IDs).

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Still Rock Solid in 2025

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1. Bulkification is Still King 👑

You still can’t escape governor limits — so yes, your triggers must be bulkified.

for (Account acc : Trigger.new) {
    accList.add(acc);
}

📌 Why it still matters:
A user importing 10k records via Data Loader shouldn’t be punished for our laziness.

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2. Trigger Frameworks = Maintainability

If you’re still writing everything directly inside trigger blocks, it’s time.

trigger AccountTrigger on Account (before insert, after update) {
    AccountTriggerHandler.handle(Trigger.new, Trigger.oldMap);
}

📌 Still works: Clean, readable, testable logic.

Real-life benefit: Your junior dev can fix a bug without breaking 3 unrelated flows.

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3. Test Classes with Assertive Logic

Tests that just run and say nothing? Nope.

System.assertEquals('ExpectedValue', actualValue, 'Make sure the field value is correct');

📌 Still a must:

• 85%+ test coverage ✔️
• Test both happy and sad paths
• Use @testSetup to reduce code duplication

🧠 Pro Tip: Your future self will thank you when the next critical release drops.

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4. Hardcoded IDs — Seriously, Stop.

Yes, still happening. And still bad.

if (acc.RecordTypeId == '0123p0000004Xyz') { ... }

✅ Use dynamic fetching:

Schema.SObjectType.Account.getRecordTypeInfosByName().get('Customer').getRecordTypeId();

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5. Monolithic Utility Classes

Remember the 1000-line Utils class with every helper method ever?

✅ In 2025, we prefer modular services:

• EmailService
• ValidationHelper
• OpportunityScoringEngine

Modular = Testable, Maintainable, Sanity-Saving.

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6. Trigger Handlers Without Metadata Switches

If your trigger handler doesn’t support toggling via Custom Metadata, you’re missing a trick.

✅ Introduce Feature Flags:

if (FeatureToggle__mdt.getInstance('NewOppScoring').isEnabled__c) {
    // Execute logic
}

Real-life story: We paused a trigger in Production during a Black Friday glitch — without deployment. 💪

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❌ Outdated or Just Bad in 2025

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7. Overusing “Without Sharing” in Apex

Using without sharing just to get past access issues? That’s like kicking in a locked door.

🚫 Avoid unless you have a solid business case + strict field-level security applied.

Trust me — this is how data leaks happen (and how midnight war rooms start).

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8. Writing Everything in Apex When Flow Can Do It

2025 Flow Builder is a beast. You don’t need Apex for:

• Field updates
• Email alerts
• Simple validations

✅ Let Admins own declarative logic — focus your Apex on complex, cross-object, async, or governed logic.

⚠️ Mixing Flows and Triggers? Use entry conditions carefully to avoid looping nightmares.

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9. Using Maps, But Not Understanding Them

Misusing maps is like giving a toddler a chainsaw.

Bad:

Map<Id, Account> accMap = new Map<Id, Account>();
// forgetting to populate it!

Good:

Map<Id, Account> accMap = new Map<Id, Account>([SELECT Id, Name FROM Account WHERE ...]);

🧠 Pro Tip: Use maps to minimize SOQL and boost performance, not just for looking cool.

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🧩 Bonus: What’s New & Smart in 2025?

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🔥 Newer Trends

• Custom Metadata for feature toggles = must-have
• Platform Events + Change Data Capture = async magic
• Apex Telemetry & Logs via Event Monitoring
• LWC + Apex + Named Credentials = decoupled, scalable integrations
• External Services & Flow + Apex hybrid models

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📋 Final Checklist for Modern Apex

✅ Trigger Framework in place
✅ No hardcoded values
✅ Modular helper classes
✅ Meaningful test classes with coverage
✅ Asynchronous design patterns
✅ CRUD/FLS enforced everywhere
✅ Declarative-first mindset
✅ Custom Metadata used for switches
✅ Code reviewed + documented

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