7 min read
How the KV cache shapes AI agent design
Prompt caching only works when each request begins with the same tokens as the last. The design rules that follow for AI agents, and how to check them.
Writing on AI, engineering and leadership
Most of what I write now is about building with AI agents and the context engineering around them. Older posts cover web performance, technical debt and leading engineering teams.
5 min read
The economics of an agent's context window
An agent re-sends its whole conversation every turn. What that does to a bill, what a real project's numbers showed, and the five habits that changed it.
8 min read
Context engineering in practice
AI coding tools are context engines. How the harness works, the practices that improve what it produces, and what to settle before a team adopts them.
6 min read
Working with AI
The mental model, the five levers that actually work, and the failure modes to watch for when you put an LLM into your daily workflow.
6 min read
RSA encryption in JavaScript, decryption in Java
RSA-OAEP encryption in the browser with the Web Crypto API, decrypted on a Java backend, with the key formats and padding that have to match.
7 min read
Understanding similarity or semantic search and vector databases
A high-level look at similarity search: embeddings, distance measures, the index structures that keep search fast, and what a vector database adds.
5 min read
useSyncExternalStore hook with RxJS
Subscribe to RxJS observable updates from React using the useSyncExternalStore hook.
6 min read
useSyncExternalStore hook with Firestore
Subscribe to Firestore live updates from React using the useSyncExternalStore hook.
1 min read
How to apply Question's Framework to navigate a newly joined project?
A worked example of applying the questions framework to a project you have just joined.
3 min read
Questions framework to quickly understand and contribute to the new project you joined
Nine questions to ask when you join a new project, so you understand the product, the codebase and your own part in it before writing any code.
5 min read
Most Software Products are Over-Engineered
What over-engineering costs a software product, why teams keep doing it, and how to keep a build aligned with what users actually asked for.
4 min read
Tech Debt: A Non-Technical Guide for Managers
Tech debt is a crucial concept for managers to understand, regardless of their technical background.
7 min read
A definitive guide for performance improvement tools and solutions for web applications
This article will help you understand how to monitor and improve the overall performance of web applications.