Writing

Technical articles, insights, and lessons learned from building software systems. I write about architecture decisions, engineering practices, and the challenges of delivering reliable software at scale.

96 articles

June 2, 2026 Tier 3 logging in code: OpenTelemetry to Grafana Tempo The three changes that take a serverless API from Powertools and traceparent strings to OTel SDK spans shipping to Tempo, with a runnable docker-compose stack.

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June 1, 2026 Tier 2 logging in code: Powertools, EMF, traceparent The three changes that take a serverless API from CloudWatch-only logging to Tier 2, walked through with a runnable LocalStack repo and the actual log lines it produces.

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May 31, 2026 API logging in production Three-tier guide to logging a serverless API on AWS. The CloudWatch-only baseline in detail, plus what I would reach for next when it strains.

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May 30, 2026 How AI agents find code in your repo Agents read too much code. Five strategies they use to fix it, from raw file reads to recursive language models.

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May 29, 2026 DynamoDB single-table design, worked through Four entities, six access patterns, one table, one GSI. The key design walked step by step with the runnable repo behind it.

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May 28, 2026 Orchestration vs choreography: which to choose Side by side comparison of the two saga implementations from the previous posts. What each one cost to build, what it gives you operationally, and which questions to ask before picking.

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May 27, 2026 Orchestration with Step Functions The same four-step order saga, this time driven by a Step Functions state machine. Catch blocks for compensation, no event bus.

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May 26, 2026 Choreography with EventBridge Four Lambdas coordinated through EventBridge events, deployed to LocalStack. The first half of a saga pattern comparison; the orchestration version comes next.

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Three.js ExperimentsMay 25, 2026 Low-Poly 3D Clouds in Three.js How the polygonal cloud background on this site works: a single InstancedMesh, jittered icosahedron geometry, cel-shaded clusters of flat blobs, fog, and mouse parallax.

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May 24, 2026 Parquet vs CSV file format Parquet stores values column-by-column with a metadata footer at the end. CSV stores rows. That layout difference is why analytical tools default to parquet.