// Writing Essays, guides & field notes
From the blog
n8n vs Zapier vs Make (2026): Pricing, Power, Self-Hosting, and AI Features — With a Clear Winner by Use Case
An opinionated, hands-on comparison of n8n, Zapier, and Make in 2026 — covering real pricing at scale, self-hosting, AI capabilities, and clear winners by use case.
I Open-Sourced Two Projects. Here's What Actually Happened.
I open-sourced two projects and tracked everything — stars, PRs, docs effort, and the silence after launch. Here's what actually happened and when open source is worth it.
AI UX Patterns That Actually Work in Production: Loading States, Streaming, Confidence, and Human Handoffs
Most AI products slap a chat UI on an API call and call it done. Here are the production-ready UX patterns that actually work — from streaming responses and confidence indicators to human-in-the-loop handoffs that preserve context.
Prompt Engineering Production Patterns That Actually Ship
Production LLM pipelines need more than zero-shot prompts. This guide covers four battle-tested patterns — few-shot, chain-of-thought, JSON mode, and tool-use — and shows how to combine them for reliable systems at scale.
Local-First Software Is the Future — Here's How I Built One With Tauri, SQLite, and CRDTs
Cloud-first apps break without internet and compromise your data. Here's why local-first architecture with Tauri, SQLite, and CRDTs is the better path — drawn from real experience shipping OpsConsole.
RAG Explained: Building AI Systems That Actually Know Your Data
Most RAG tutorials stop at the quickstart. Here's the opinionated guide to chunking, embeddings, vector stores, and retrieval that actually works in production — not just in notebooks.
SEO Isn't Dead: How to Rank in the Age of AI Search in 2026
SEO isn't dead — it's just playing by new rules. A practical playbook for ranking in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and the zero-click reality of 2026.
Model Context Protocol (MCP): The USB-C Standard for AI and Why Developers Should Care
MCP is the open protocol that gives AI models like Claude and GPT a standardized way to connect to tools and APIs — one integration instead of a dozen. A practical, opinionated guide for developers who are tired of writing bespoke AI integrations.