Blog — AI agents, dev tooling and indie builds

Long-form posts on AI agents, developer tooling, Rust, automation and building software in public.

Latest posts

• Graphify: Notes Into a Queryable Knowledge Graph — Turn Markdown notes into a queryable knowledge graph — entities, relationships, edges any LLM agent can traverse. My second brain setup inside.
• Meta Astryx: Rust-Powered Successor to React Native? — Meta open-sourced Astryx — a Rust runtime replacing React Native's JS bridge. I built a hello-world and analyzed what it means for cross-platform.
• Aura.build Review: The AI App Builder I Actually Use — I tested Aura.build against Lovable, Bolt.new, and v0. Here's where Aura wins, where it still hurts, and why it's the AI app builder I actually kept using.
• Superhero UI: The Boldest React Library of 2026? — Superhero UI is loud, colorful, pop-art — the anti-shadcn. I rebuilt a dashboard with it. When it wins, hurts, and vs Aceternity and Magic UI.
• Agency-Agents: Running a Multi-Agent Team in Claude Code — Agency-agents treats AI agents like a consultancy — PM, engineer, designer, QA — with clear roles and hand-offs. I tested it against CrewAI and AutoGen.
• Build a Free WhatsApp Bot in Node.js with OpenWA — Automate WhatsApp with pure Node.js — no Twilio, no Business API, no per-message fees. Full setup with QR login, message handlers, media, and a template repo.
• 12 Weeks of Blogging as a Builder: What Actually Got Traffic — Twelve posts, three months, one SPA. The traffic data shows which posts worked, which platforms didn\’t, and the SEO moves that actually drove visits.
• 3 Open-Source Tools That Replaced My Video Editor — HTML in, MP4 out. A 3-tool pipeline — HyperFrames, html-video, glue code — that replaced my video editor. Setup and code inside.
• Indie hacker stack 2026 — every tool I pay for, $47/month total — My full indie stack — hosting, domain, email, payments, analytics, dev tools. Total: $47/month. Here's every tool and why I picked it over alternatives.
• 12 weeks of blogging — what actually drove traffic — 12 weeks, 54 posts, 8k monthly visitors. What worked: SEO + topic clusters + syndication. What didn't: Twitter threads, Reddit big subs, chasing viral spikes.
• Building in public — 90 days, real traffic and revenue data — 90 days of building in public. Traffic 0 to 8k/month. Email list 0 to 1,200. Revenue $0 to $827. Here's what actually worked — and what didn't.
• Best CLI tools 2026 — 25 I install on every machine — 25 CLI tools I install on every new machine — fd, rg, bat, fzf, jq, lazygit, gh, and more. With brew/apt install commands and the workflows I actually use.
• 7 Postgres mistakes that cost me 3 weekends — 7 Postgres mistakes I made on side projects that cost me 3 weekends of debugging. Indexes, JSON columns, migrations, pooling, backups — learn from my pain.
• FFmpeg cheat sheet — 20 commands I use weekly — 20 FFMPEG commands I use weekly — convert, trim, concat, overlay, extract audio, generate GIFs, optimize for web. Copy these and skip the docs dive.
• OSINT Your Own Digital Footprint with Sploitas — I ran OSINT tools on myself \— emails, accounts, data brokers, the works. Here\’s what surfaced and the exact cleanup steps I took.
• 12 git aliases that save me 30 minutes a day — 30 minutes a day, 180 hours a year. 12 git aliases I actually use — navigation, editing, log views, cleanup. Copy my .gitconfig and skip the research.
• Free $300 AI credits — every provider, no card required — $3,000+ of free AI credits across 10 providers, no credit card required. Google, Hugging Face, Modal, Groq, Cohere, Mistral, OpenRouter — stack them for 6+ months.
• Privacy tools for India — 12 I actually use, no tracking, no ads — 12 privacy tools I use daily in India. All free or cheap, all work on Indian ISPs, all legal. Browser, search, email, VPN, messaging, file sync.
• Open-source alternatives to every SaaS — $340/month saved — I canceled $340/month in SaaS subscriptions. Open-source replacements for Notion, Slack, Dropbox, 1Password, Linear, and more. 30-minute setup each.
• Tauri + React — the stack this site uses (and why) — 4 desktop apps shipped in Tauri+React. The setup, state management, IPC bridge, and gotchas I hit on every project. Field-tested, not theoretical.
• Run Llama 3.1 locally on a $400 laptop — full setup — $400 laptop, 8GB RAM, Llama 3.1 8B at 12 tokens/sec. The exact hardware, software stack, quantization choice, and benchmarks. Skip the cloud subscription.
• Tauri vs Electron in 2026 — same app, real benchmarks — Same todo app built in Tauri and Electron. Tauri won every metric — 9.4x smaller installer, 4.1x less RAM, 2.8x faster cold start. Here's the data.
• Rust ownership — the model that finally clicked after 90 days — I fought the Rust borrow checker for 90 days. Then 3 rules made it click. Common patterns: clone vs reference vs Box, when each is right.
• Context engineering beats prompt engineering — with proof — Same prompt, same model, different context. 3x output quality gap. The test setup, the data, and 4 rules that made context engineering click.
• Agentic workflows — 4 patterns that survived 90 days in production — 11 agentic patterns tested, 4 survived production. Plan-then-execute, tool-augmented RAG, multi-agent with handoff, eval-gated deploy. Here's what died and why.
• Claude Code vs Cursor vs Copilot — 90-day real comparison — Same 5 tasks, three editors, 90 days. Cursor won for inline speed, Claude Code won for agentic work, Copilot won for cheap. Real data, not marketing.
• Build a custom MCP server in 50 lines of Python — A working MCP server in 50 lines of Python — annotated, registered, ready to extend. The full setup with troubleshooting for common errors.
• Claude Code memory MCP — how I stopped losing 3 hours per project — Every new Claude Code session forgot everything. The codebase-memory-mcp server fixed it — 10 min setup, persistent context across every chat.
• Best MCP servers for Claude Code — 5 I actually use (2026) — I tested 23 MCP servers over 30 days. Five survived. Ranked list with code samples, real gotchas, and the exact reason each stays in my .mcp.json.
• TestSprite: The AI QA Tool That Actually Finds Bugs — After Cypress broke and Playwright rotted, TestSprite was the first AI QA tool that caught real bugs in my vibe-coded apps. Full setup walkthrough included.
• I Gave Claude Code a Design System (Refero + DESIGN.md) — I built the same app twice — raw prompts vs Refero + DESIGN.md. The before/after output and why giving Claude a design system matters.
• The Datacenter IP Block: YouTube Downloads for AI Agents — How I beat YouTube's datacenter IP detection and PO-token enforcement — the failures, the breakthroughs, and the 13-method fallback chain behind ytagent.
• 5 Design Inspiration Sites I Use Daily (Not Dribbble) — Dribbble is a portfolio, not a reference library. The 5 sites I use daily for real-world design patterns — honest pros, cons, and when each actually helps.
• Optimize for AI Search: llms.txt, Schema & Citations — ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews now send real traffic. Here is the exact setup — llms.txt, JSON-LD, topic hubs, feeds — that got my pages quoted.
• 14-Point Checklist Before Shipping Vibe-Coded Apps — AI can generate the app in an afternoon. It cannot tell you what you forgot. The exact 14 checks I run before any AI-assisted build goes live.
• Trigger.dev vs Inngest for Next.js Background Jobs — Real Trigger.dev v3 setup walkthrough after testing Inngest, Temporal, and DBOS. Code snippets, pricing comparison, and when to pick which one.
• Deploy Everything From GitHub With Zero DevOps Knowledge — Deploy static sites, APIs, and full-stack apps using only git push and GitHub integrations. No Docker, no Kubernetes, no AWS console needed.
• 6 Non-Obvious TypeScript Tricks for React Devs — Six non-obvious TypeScript patterns for React — discriminated unions, template literals, satisfies, and more. Real code examples from production codebases.
• Supabase vs Firebase: I Migrated 3 Real Projects — Supabase vs Firebase compared after migrating three real production apps. Pricing, auth, storage, and reliability data — no theory, just what I found.
• Git Aliases That Save Me 30 Min Every Day — Every git alias I use daily — from staging commits to force-pushing safely — with the full .gitconfig snippet ready to copy.
• Shadcn Dark Mode Fix That Actually Works — The exact configuration for shadcn dark mode with next-themes — CSS variables, system preference detection, and FOUC prevention in one pass.
• 15 Free APIs That Work Without an API Key — A curated list of 15 free APIs that genuinely work without authentication — tested over 14 hours, with rate limits and reliability notes for each.
• 12 Tailwind Components I Copy Into Every Project — The 12 Tailwind CSS components I copy into every new project — nav, gradient cards, animated buttons, toasts, and more. Full code snippets included.
• Your First Open Source PR: A No-BS Beginner Guide — Land your first open source PR \— find good issues, fork right, write descriptions that get merged, and handle review feedback. Practical walkthrough.
• v0 vs Bolt.new vs Lovable: Head-to-Head in 2026 — v0, Bolt.new, and Lovable compared head-to-head for AI web app generation \— pricing, output quality, and which one ships production-ready code in 2026.
• Zero-CMS Blog Pipeline: SEO, Web Stories & Telegram — A zero-CMS automated blog pipeline using GitHub Actions, AMP Web Stories, and Telegram — with actual code patterns for hands-on replication.
• Free AI Code Review on Every PR via GitHub Actions — Automate AI code review on every PR with GitHub Actions and OpenRouter\’s free models. One API key, no per-token cost, just a YAML file and a secret.
• How I Ship Side Projects in One Weekend (Realistic) — The real process behind shipping 20+ side projects in single weekends \— no 4 AM crunches, just ruthless scope cutting and a repeatable system that works.
• HTML-to-Video Agents: No Editor Required — Tested Hyperframes by HeyGen and html-video by nexu-io for programmatic video creation. One worked for simple explainers. The other needs six more months.
• Rust for JS Developers: What Actually Mattered — What JS devs actually need in Rust \— ownership, borrowing, enums, and pattern matching. Skip chapters 1-8 of the Rust Book, focus on what transfers.
• Why I Picked Pinia Over Redux (And When Redux Wins) — Pinia's simpler API vs Redux Toolkit's ecosystem — real comparison with code and an honest take on when each state library wins.
• Stoppage-Free Multi-LLM TUI with Cascading Fallbacks — Build a Node.js reverse proxy that streams Codex CLI and cascades across Cerebras, Groq, Google, and OpenRouter for stoppage-free agent execution.
• The Regex Cheat Sheet Developers Actually Need — Battle-tested regex patterns for email validation, URL extraction, HTML stripping, and slug generation. No theory — just patterns that work in production.
• Build a Desktop App with Tauri 2.0 (No Electron) — Build a cross-platform desktop app with Tauri 2.0, React, and Vite — 2.8 MB instead of 180 MB. Real gotchas from a first-time Rust developer.
• LOTR CLI: The Catalog for 18,142 AI Agent Skills — I crawled 307 GitHub repos, deduped 18,142 AI agent skills into 357 picks across 10 LOTR kingdoms, and shipped a CLI that installs the right ones.
• Aceternity UI vs Magic UI vs shadcn: Which Saves Time — Honest comparison after using all three in production. Aceternity for animations, shadcn for structure, Magic UI for client demos. Here's the real breakdown.
• SoulX FlashHead on Free Colab T4 (Talking Head AI) — Run SoulX FlashHead 1.3B — an open-source talking-head model — on a free Colab T4 in under 90 seconds. Fixes MediaPipe, adds 16:9 compositing.
• Google Antigravity 2.0: Every Feature vs Claude — Every Antigravity 2.0 feature from I/O 2026 — desktop, subagents, tasks, CLI, and SDK — with real comparison setups vs Cursor and Claude Code.
• Why I Build Apps as a Sales Agent — How selling by day taught me to think like a product builder — and why more non-developers should ship code to solve their own problems.
• Migrate Google Drive Without Downloading via rclone — How I moved 30.6 GB and 3,687 files between Google accounts in 57 minutes — server-side, no downloads. Exact rclone commands and dedupe fixes.
• I Replaced Lovable: My New Honest AI Builder Stack — I removed every trace of Lovable from my codebase and rebuilt with three tools that cost less, produce better output, and don't lock you into a credit system.
• Local AI is the Future of Privacy — Why I built PrivacyThink to run LLMs on-device — no cloud, no tracking, no compromises. Architecture, trade-offs, and why local AI matters now.
• How I Shipped 14 Hugging Face Spaces in a Year — Treating HF Spaces as a release pipeline — not a portfolio dump — compounded into 14 shipped projects in one year. System, cadence, and mistakes.
• CloudStream v4.7.0: Ditch 4 OTT Subscriptions Free — Free CloudStream setup for India. Download v4.7.0 APK, add 4 working repositories, stream movies, shows & anime free. No ads, open-source.
• Building NoteCanvas: A Free GoodNotes Alternative — How I built NoteCanvas — a privacy-first, cross-platform notes app from scratch. Tech stack, design choices, and lessons from shipping a GoodNotes alternative.