Recent

• April 15, 2026

  How an AI expense agent is actually structured

  Most AI agent tutorials show you the LLM call. They skip the part where you have to do something useful with the response.

• April 13, 2026

  Build Your First MCP Server: Code Tips in Claude and Slack

  MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard connector between AI clients and external tools. I built a server from scratch in 78 lines. Result: my coding tips repo, searchable inside Claude Code and a Slack slash command, using the same server.

• April 10, 2026

  Stop Prompting, Start Structuring Your AI Workflow

  Six months ago, every AI-assisted coding session started the same way: I'd type a prompt, get a result, tweak the prompt, try again. It worked, until I noticed I kept solving the same meta-problems: reminding the AI of my conventions, re-explaining how I want code reviewed, re-describing my verification steps.

  The fix wasn't better prompts. It was replacing prompts with a reproducible system.

• April 8, 2026

  What Rust Structs Taught Me About State Ownership

  Python classes bundle data and behavior together. Rust separates them, and that separation taught me to ask a question I'd been skipping for years.

• April 7, 2026

  Build a Finite State Machine in Python

  Libraries like transitions make using finite state machines (FSMs) easy. Maybe too easy. You wire up states, transitions, and callbacks, and it 'just' works. But when you need to customize behavior, debug a stuck workflow, or explain to a teammate why a transition silently failed, you need a deeper understanding. And what better way than building a simple FSM from scratch?

• April 6, 2026

  How to Migrate Users Between Django Apps on Login

  Migrating users between two live Django apps sounds like it needs one big migration script and a maintenance window. It turns out it doesn't.

• April 1, 2026

  From 1,069 to 156 LOC: Design Over Code

  I wanted to migrate a content drip system. My intuition said "web app," and instead of Django (comfort zone), I'd learn Axum, a Rust web framework. Two sessions with Claude Code and I had something real: 1,069 lines of Rust.

  If only I had asked first: Does this need to be a web app?

• March 30, 2026

  How Modern Python Tooling Simplified My Setup

  A few years ago, setting up a Python project meant wiring together six or seven tools before writing a single line of code. Today that list has shrunk dramatically. The tools are faster, more ergonomic, and far simpler to configure.

• March 27, 2026

  The Repository Pattern: Swap Data Sources in One Line

  Your live data source just broke. The API provider changed their auth overnight, no warning, no migration path. Now your entire app is blocked.

• March 25, 2026

  What Building a JSON Tokenizer Taught Me About Rust

  Most Rust learning resources teach concepts one at a time. I learn faster by building something and getting stuck.