From the field
Notes on Stripe payments, AI agents in production, and full-stack SaaS architecture
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The tests were already written. Nothing ever ran them.
A regression reached production, and the test that would have caught it was already in the repo. There was no test script, and the only CI workflow never triggered on a push. How I wired it up.
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Docker bypassed my firewall: the database port was open to the internet
My host firewall blocked port 5432. It was reachable from the internet anyway, because Docker writes its own iptables rules that your INPUT and ufw rules never see. Why it happens, and how to actually close it.
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The MCP servers that actually earn their keep with Claude Code
Not a directory of 200 MCP servers: the three I still use after a month of real work, how to wire them cleanly, and the ones I removed.
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The docker build that filled the disk and took down production
Production went down with no code change. The cause was a docker compose build orphaning a new <none> image on every deploy until the disk filled. What actually cleared it, and the deeper fix.
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Shipping a SaaS on one VPS with Docker Compose: an honest audit
The whole product runs on a single VPS behind one docker-compose.yml. Here is why that was the right call at launch, and an honest map of every single point of failure it hides.
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Sharing a Claude Code config across a team
Versioned CLAUDE.md, settings.json vs settings.local.json, shared MCP servers, hooks: what gets shared, what stays local, and the traps in between.
- teamprocessagile
A practical playbook for running a remote dev team
One QA, eight people, a multi-tenant codebase, and too many bugs in prod. Here are the five ceremonies a new lead used to fix it, with the exact way we run each one.
- webdevux
The cart timer expired while they were paying. Now what?
A countdown that fires mid-payment is a tiny bug with a huge tell: the engineer optimized for the system and forgot there was a person on the other end. Here is how to handle it, and the product habit it reveals.
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Multiple accounts in Claude Code: the complete setup
How to run multiple Claude Code accounts on one machine, with shell aliases, config isolation, per-project defaults, and the pitfalls nobody warns you about.
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Cloudflare under the hood: how it works and how attackers try to get around it
What actually happens when a request hits a Cloudflare-protected site, how Turnstile distinguishes bots from humans, and the techniques attackers use to find the origin server behind the proxy.
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Stop refunding payments you should never have charged
The charge-then-refund flow is everywhere, and it's almost always wrong. Authorize first, run your checks, then capture. Here's the property that does it.
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Sharing cookies across subdomains locally
A prod-identical local setup where cookies are shared across subdomains over real HTTPS, with zero app code changes. The trick lives in /etc/hosts + nginx.
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Architecture matters more than clean code
I spent 2 weeks making my serverless functions clean. The architecture was wrong. I rewrote everything as a single Express server and it was simpler.
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Debugging is more important than features
My blog returned 404 on every page at 2 AM. I had zero visibility into why. Here is the debugging infrastructure I wish I had set up from day one.
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Why the perfect code is less maintainable
I spent 3 hours reviewing a 200-line PR handling every edge case. A 40-line version with a TODO beats it. Here's why perfect code slows you down.
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Stripe alternatives in the EU
Stripe is the default for online payments, but if you need only one method, you're paying for features you'll never use. Here's what I found comparing.
- webdevreact
Social previews in React: UA detection
How to handle Open Graph meta tags for LinkedIn, Google, and Discord previews in a React SPA using server-side user-agent detection with nginx/.htaccess.
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AI-powered git branch diff summaries
How to generate a smart summary of branch diffs, highlighting deleted files and renames so AI agents have context to review, refactor, or document it.
- devopsaws
Testing Lambda + EventBridge locally
How to test AWS Lambda functions and EventBridge rules locally using SAM, LocalStack, and docker-compose. No cloud deployment needed.
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AI infrastructure: a maintenance nightmare
I asked AI to generate Terraform for a standard AWS setup. It produced 2,400 lines that worked perfectly. Here's why I'd never deploy it to production.
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How to check your AI's actual context window
How to verify the actual context window of an LLM, understand external vs internal context, and avoid the silent truncation problem.
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Token economy: cutting context waste
How loom-memory turns a Git repository into a persistent knowledge base for AI agents, cutting token spend with durable context instead of cold reads.