[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":859},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-\u002Fblog\u002Fretiring-a-board":3,"blog-all":358},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":339,"date":340,"description":341,"draft":342,"extension":343,"image":344,"meta":345,"navigation":346,"path":347,"project":348,"readingMinutes":349,"seo":350,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344,"stem":351,"tags":352,"__hash__":357},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fretiring-a-board.md","Retiring a Board: User Testing a CLI Before You Ship It","EkoHacks Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":330},"minimark",[10,27,30,35,38,45,106,109,112,116,122,130,133,136,142,145,149,156,162,165,175,178,182,189,195,207,213,216,219,223,226,232,235,242,245,249,252,255,278,281,285,288,320,323,326],[11,12,13,14,18,19,22,23,26],"p",{},"We had a Linear board to retire. Gleamcave, 50 stories across four columns, a project making way for its successor. We also had a brand-new CLI command that promised to do the whole job: ",[15,16,17],"code",{},"eko stories fetch"," to read a column, ",[15,20,21],{},"eko stories archive"," to empty it, ",[15,24,25],{},"eko stories create"," to push the next project's backlog. Every behaviour was pinned by a test. The suite was green. So we were done, right?",[11,28,29],{},"We spent an afternoon user testing it against the real board before shipping. The suite had proven every behaviour we designed. The afternoon found four things we hadn't designed. That gap is what this post is about.",[31,32,34],"h2",{"id":33},"start-with-a-baseline-you-didnt-build","Start With a Baseline You Didn't Build",[11,36,37],{},"Here is the trap: if you check a tool by looking at the tool's own output, you are testing whether it agrees with itself. It always does.",[11,39,40,41,44],{},"So before the CLI touched anything, we read the board without it, using three raw GraphQL queries with ",[15,42,43],{},"curl",". Who am I, and which workspace is this key for? What columns does this team actually have? And the big one: every issue, with its column.",[46,47,52],"pre",{"className":48,"code":49,"language":50,"meta":51,"style":51},"language-bash shiki shiki-themes github-dark","curl -s https:\u002F\u002Fapi.linear.app\u002Fgraphql \\\n  -H \"Authorization: $LINEAR_API_KEY\" -H \"Content-Type: application\u002Fjson\" \\\n  -d '{\"query\":\"{ issues(filter:{team:{key:{eq:\\\"GLE\\\"}}}, first:100) { nodes { identifier state { name } } } }\"}'\n","bash","",[15,53,54,73,97],{"__ignoreMap":51},[55,56,59,62,66,70],"span",{"class":57,"line":58},"line",1,[55,60,43],{"class":61},"svObZ",[55,63,65],{"class":64},"sDLfK"," -s",[55,67,69],{"class":68},"sU2Wk"," https:\u002F\u002Fapi.linear.app\u002Fgraphql",[55,71,72],{"class":64}," \\\n",[55,74,76,79,82,86,89,92,95],{"class":57,"line":75},2,[55,77,78],{"class":64},"  -H",[55,80,81],{"class":68}," \"Authorization: ",[55,83,85],{"class":84},"s95oV","$LINEAR_API_KEY",[55,87,88],{"class":68},"\"",[55,90,91],{"class":64}," -H",[55,93,94],{"class":68}," \"Content-Type: application\u002Fjson\"",[55,96,72],{"class":64},[55,98,100,103],{"class":57,"line":99},3,[55,101,102],{"class":64},"  -d",[55,104,105],{"class":68}," '{\"query\":\"{ issues(filter:{team:{key:{eq:\\\"GLE\\\"}}}, first:100) { nodes { identifier state { name } } } }\"}'\n",[11,107,108],{},"Grouped by column: Backlog 33, Done 9, In Progress 4, Todo 4. Fifty issues, and now we had their identifiers from a source the CLI had never seen. Everything the CLI claimed from here on could be checked against that list.",[11,110,111],{},"If you have ever written a characterisation test, this is the same move. The baseline is the pin.",[31,113,115],{"id":114},"read-everything-before-you-change-anything","Read Everything Before You Change Anything",[11,117,118,121],{},[15,119,120],{},"fetch"," is read-only, which makes it free to test. So we wrung it dry first.",[46,123,128],{"className":124,"code":126,"language":127},[125],"language-text","$ eko stories fetch GLE Backlog\n  page 1: 33 stories\nGLE-6 [Story,Website,Feature] Homepage: fast bilingual hero\nGLE-7 [Story,Website] Language switch EL\u002FEN with localized URLs + SEO\n...\n","text",[15,129,126],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,131,132],{},"We diffed the identifiers against the baseline: exact match, all four columns. Then the backups. A third argument writes the full JSON, six fields per story, so we saved one file per column outside the repo. Those files matter in a minute, because we were about to archive everything they describe.",[11,134,135],{},"The negative tests came next. Unset the API key and the command stops before making a single request:",[46,137,140],{"className":138,"code":139,"language":127},[125],"$ LINEAR_API_KEY= eko stories fetch GLE Backlog\nstopped: stories fetch needs LINEAR_API_KEY\n",[15,141,139],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,143,144],{},"Sequence the risky after the safe. By the time anything could mutate the board, the reading half had earned our trust.",[31,146,148],{"id":147},"the-wrong-workspace-episode","The Wrong-Workspace Episode",[11,150,151,152,155],{},"Then the first real run of ",[15,153,154],{},"create"," fell over:",[46,157,160],{"className":158,"code":159,"language":127},[125],"$ eko stories create GLE gle-test-backlog.json\nstopped: no team with key GLE\n",[15,161,159],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,163,164],{},"The CLI was fine. The terminal was not: it held a stale API key from an earlier session. A valid key, happily authenticating, for the wrong Linear workspace. A workspace with no team called GLE. The command's named stop did exactly its job.",[11,166,167,168,170,171,174],{},"But here is the uncomfortable part. The same wrong key under ",[15,169,120],{}," doesn't stop. It prints ",[15,172,173],{},"page 1: 0 stories"," and exits zero, a lie with a straight face. An empty result and a wrong environment look identical.",[11,176,177],{},"No unit test would ever have caught this. In the test suite, the null Linear never has a wrong key. We never designed that failure, so we never pinned it. Environment is part of the system under test, and only the real environment can play its part.",[31,179,181],{"id":180},"create-and-prove-the-tree","Create, and Prove the Tree",[11,183,184,185,188],{},"With the right key exported, we pushed a disposable test backlog: two phases, nested children, one grandchild three levels deep, all titled ",[15,186,187],{},"[test]",". First the preview:",[46,190,193],{"className":191,"code":192,"language":127},[125],"$ eko stories create GLE gle-test-backlog.json --dry-run\n  would have created [test] Phase 1: walking skeleton\n    would have created [test] Deploy hello-world to staging\n      would have created [test] Provision staging DNS\n    would have created [test] Smoke test on staging\n  ...\n  would have created 7 stories in GLE\n",[15,194,192],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,196,197,198,202,203,206],{},"Then the real run, answering ",[199,200,201],"strong",{},"n"," at the confirm first and checking nothing appeared. Then ",[199,204,205],{},"y",". Seven cards, GLE-51 through GLE-57, minted depth-first. And again: don't take the tool's word for it. A GraphQL query for the new cards' parent links:",[46,208,211],{"className":209,"code":210,"language":127},[125],"GLE-51  parent=-       [test] Phase 1: walking skeleton\nGLE-52  parent=GLE-51  [test] Deploy hello-world to staging\nGLE-53  parent=GLE-52  [test] Provision staging DNS\nGLE-54  parent=GLE-51  [test] Smoke test on staging\n",[15,212,210],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,214,215],{},"The nesting mirrors the JSON exactly, grandchild included. The parent-before-children promise, proven by the board itself.",[11,217,218],{},"A confession from the transcript: the create ran twice, so GLE-58 through GLE-64 were duplicates of 51 through 57. Nothing malfunctioned; the command is append-only by design. But now we know something the design never states out loud: a second \"y\" on the same file doubles a backlog. Finding, noted, documented.",[31,220,222],{"id":221},"the-typo-episode","The Typo Episode",[11,224,225],{},"Now the destructive half. First target: a small column.",[46,227,230],{"className":228,"code":229,"language":127},[125],"$ eko stories archive GLE InProgress\n  nothing to archive in GLE\u002FInProgress\n",[15,231,229],{"__ignoreMap":51},[11,233,234],{},"Except the column is called \"In Progress\", with a space. Four live stories sat there, untouched, while the command reported something indistinguishable from success. The same ambiguity that hid the wrong workspace key had just bitten a plain human typo. For the second time in an hour, \"does not exist\" wore the costume of \"is empty\".",[11,236,237,238,241],{},"One occurrence is an anecdote. Two in an hour is a specification. That evening it became a written story for the next release: unknown teams and columns are named stops. The fix is one query away, because the team's real column names are right there to ask for, and the stop can simply say what exists: ",[15,239,240],{},"no column \"InProgress\" in GLE (it has: Backlog, Todo, In Progress, ...)",".",[11,243,244],{},"This is the honest economics of user testing. The suite pins every behaviour you thought of. An hour of real use writes the stories you didn't.",[31,246,248],{"id":247},"the-tidy-and-proving-archive-not-delete","The Tidy, and Proving \"Archive, Not Delete\"",[11,250,251],{},"With the quotes in place, the sweep: every column, backed up first, then archived. The confirm names the count before anything happens; the mutations go up in batches of 25 behind GraphQL aliases, so 40 stories cost two round trips, not forty; and a re-run converges immediately on \"nothing to archive\", which is what makes a partial failure safe to retry.",[11,253,254],{},"Then the claim that justifies the whole design. Archiving is reversible, so the board's record survives its tidying. We proved it the same way as everything else, with a query the CLI didn't run:",[256,257,258,265],"ul",{},[259,260,261,262,241],"li",{},"The live board: ",[199,263,264],{},"0 issues",[259,266,267,268,271,272,241],{},"The same query with ",[15,269,270],{},"includeArchived: true",": ",[199,273,274,275],{},"all 64, every one stamped with ",[15,276,277],{},"archivedAt",[11,279,280],{},"The column went back to the present tense. The history is one query flag away. That is the difference between tidying and shredding, and it is a claim worth proving rather than assuming.",[31,282,284],{"id":283},"what-the-afternoon-bought","What the Afternoon Bought",[11,286,287],{},"Four findings, none of them from the test suite:",[289,290,291,297,303,311],"ol",{},[259,292,293,296],{},[199,294,295],{},"An unknown team or column reads as an empty one."," Bit a wrong key, then bit a typo. Now a written story for the next release.",[259,298,299,302],{},[199,300,301],{},"No whole-board overview."," We reached for \"show me every column with its count\" mid-test and it wasn't there. Story candidate.",[259,304,305,310],{},[199,306,307,309],{},[15,308,154],{}," is append-only."," A second approved run duplicates the backlog. Documented.",[259,312,313,319],{},[199,314,315,316,241],{},"Unlabelled stories print an empty ",[15,317,318],{},"[]"," Cosmetic, queued as polish.",[11,321,322],{},"And none of them blocked the release. Every claim the release actually makes had now been proven twice, once by the suite against the null and once by the real board. So we shipped.",[11,324,325],{},"The suite proves the behaviours you designed. User testing finds the behaviours you didn't. 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Five steps to remove every mock with Nullables: real logic, real data, sociable tests.","2026-04-17T12:30:37.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-without-mocks-hero.jpg",[400,354,524],"mocks",{"path":526,"title":527,"description":528,"date":529,"author":6,"image":530,"readingMinutes":408,"category":377,"project":348,"tags":531,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Frun-it-by-hand-until-it-is-boring","Run It by Hand Until It Is Boring","Releasing EkoLite was a document before it was a command, and stayed one until running it by hand had nothing left to teach us. Why we automate operations last.","2026-07-21T17:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frun-it-by-hand-hero.jpg",[532,533,534,482],"automation","releasing","process",{"path":536,"title":537,"description":538,"date":510,"author":6,"image":539,"readingMinutes":99,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":540,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fsafe-to-run-twice","Safe to Run Twice","Connect the same repository twice, or let a webhook redeliver an event. Idempotency in two halves: writes through a natural key, side effects behind a ledger.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fsafe-to-run-twice-hero.jpg",[381,417,541],"webhooks",{"path":543,"title":544,"description":545,"date":546,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":547,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fsource-or-execute","Source or Execute","Our dojo laptops are provisioned by one bash script of nearly twelve hundred lines. Splitting it into modules is two decisions, not one, and we chose a hybrid.","2026-08-01T09:00:00.000Z",[548,549,480,381],"shell","provisioning",{"path":551,"title":552,"description":553,"date":344,"author":554,"image":555,"readingMinutes":58,"category":478,"project":556,"tags":344,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstage-then-transform-why-your-crawler-should-never-touch-production-tables","Stage, Then Transform: Crawlers Stay Out of Production","Where data from an external source lands first decides whether the pipeline still works in six months. The staging pattern, shown with a crawler we build now.","EkoHacks","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fstage-then-transform-hero.jpg","Propi",{"path":558,"title":559,"description":560,"date":561,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":376,"category":339,"project":378,"tags":562,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":447},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftelling-the-machine-what-the-page-is","Telling the Machine What the Page Is","Structured data on every post, and a test that runs after each build and fails it when a page lacks what a crawler needs. First run: forty nine problems.","2026-08-22T23:30:00.000Z",[380,400,382],{"path":564,"title":565,"description":566,"date":567,"author":6,"image":568,"readingMinutes":75,"category":339,"project":344,"tags":344,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftest-driven-development-is-not-about-tests","Test Driven Development Is Not About Tests","TDD is widely misunderstood. It is not a testing strategy. It is a design tool that produces simpler, more focused code by making you think before you type.","2026-02-01T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftdd-not-about-tests-hero.jpg",{"path":570,"title":571,"description":572,"date":573,"author":6,"image":574,"readingMinutes":447,"category":339,"project":348,"tags":575,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftesting-a-release-without-releasing","Testing a Release Without Releasing","How to test watch CI until green, then merge, hundreds of times a day with no CI in sight. Nullables, output trackers, and a fake that copies GitHub shapes.","2026-07-21T17:10:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftesting-a-release-without-releasing-hero.jpg",[354,576,577,482],"testing-without-mocks","james-shore",{"path":579,"title":580,"description":581,"date":582,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":349,"category":339,"project":366,"tags":583,"draft":342,"series":585,"seriesOrder":58},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-best-coverage-number-in-the-room","The Best Coverage Number in the Room","Same commit, same spec, same test count. The mocked suite ran 5.6 times faster, covered 3.5 fewer points of real code, and posted the best branch coverage.","2026-08-27T12:00:00.000Z",[400,354,524,584],"coverage","What Mocks Cost",{"path":587,"title":588,"description":589,"date":590,"author":6,"image":591,"readingMinutes":447,"category":478,"project":398,"tags":592,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-bug-that-resolved-successfully","The Bug That Resolved Successfully","A bug that threw no error and dropped every document because the client guessed a collection from a name. The fix was one honest field on the ready message.","2026-07-05T10:16:16.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fbug-resolved-successfully-hero.jpg",[593,594,400,595],"protocol","pubsub","tdd",{"path":597,"title":598,"description":599,"date":600,"author":6,"image":601,"readingMinutes":349,"category":339,"project":398,"tags":602,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-clock-that-learned-to-walk","The Clock That Learned to Walk","A stub clock that teleported to the end of the window instead of passing through time, so a timer set inside another never fired. A real clock model fixed it.","2026-07-07T22:44:42.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-clock-that-learned-to-walk-hero.jpg",[354,400,603],"refactoring",{"path":605,"title":606,"description":607,"date":608,"author":6,"image":609,"readingMinutes":447,"category":365,"project":366,"tags":610,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-conflict-nobody-wrote","The Conflict Nobody Wrote","A pull request conflicted in a file neither author had typed into. A generated document recorded test line numbers, both branches shifted them, git merges text.","2026-07-09T09:14:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-conflict-nobody-wrote-hero.jpg",[368,369,370],{"path":612,"title":613,"description":614,"date":615,"author":6,"image":616,"readingMinutes":617,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":618,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-container-that-wasnt-there","The Container That Wasn't There","Production served HTML where the browser asked for JavaScript, and nothing in our code had changed. A week debugging a platform we cannot see inside.","2026-07-17T14:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fcontainer-that-wasnt-there-hero.jpg",8,[381,619,620,621],"debugging","european-tech","community",{"path":623,"title":624,"description":625,"date":626,"author":6,"image":627,"readingMinutes":349,"category":478,"project":398,"tags":628,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew","The Design We Never Drew","How the upload path in EkoLite arrived rather than being drawn, and the two habits, test first and integrate always, that turn an emerging shape into a design.","2026-07-20T10:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew-hero.jpg",[490,595,629],"continuous integration",{"path":631,"title":632,"description":633,"date":634,"author":6,"image":635,"readingMinutes":408,"category":365,"project":344,"tags":344,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dojo-way-deliberate-practice-for-software-developers","The Dojo Way: Deliberate Practice for Software Developers","Most developers learn on the job, and the job rarely teaches the fundamentals. The Dojo borrows from martial arts to make a space for deliberate practice.","2026-01-22T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dojo-way-hero.jpg",{"path":637,"title":638,"description":639,"date":640,"author":6,"image":641,"readingMinutes":376,"category":365,"project":366,"tags":642,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-done-column-is-a-syllabus","The Done Column Is a Syllabus","We asked Linear for every story our team has ever finished, all 187 of them, and read the column end to end. It turned out to be the course we teach.","2026-07-31T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fdone-column-syllabus-hero.jpg",[643,644,645,356],"graphql","stories","xp",{"path":647,"title":648,"description":649,"date":650,"author":6,"image":651,"readingMinutes":447,"category":339,"project":348,"tags":652,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-failing-test-is-the-review","The Failing Test Is the Review","Every behaviour in the CLI landed as two commits: a red test, then the code that makes it green. Reviewing intent before implementation, and why red never bent.","2026-07-21T17:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-failing-test-is-the-review-hero.jpg",[595,653,654,482],"red-first","code-review",{"path":656,"title":657,"description":658,"date":659,"author":6,"image":660,"readingMinutes":447,"category":377,"project":348,"tags":661,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-first-real-run-said-no","The First Real Run Said No","The tool's first real outing ended with FAIL and a stopped rail, and we count it as a success. A naive sounding question then uncovered a quiet failure mode.","2026-07-21T17:25:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-first-real-run-said-no-hero.jpg",[533,662,368,482],"preflight",{"path":664,"title":665,"description":666,"date":667,"author":6,"image":668,"readingMinutes":447,"category":377,"project":398,"tags":669,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-five-second-goodbye","The Five Second Goodbye","A shutdown that arms its own deadline so a hung close cannot strand the process, with the policy lifted out of the boot shell so every decision can be tested.","2026-07-05T12:03:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-five-second-goodbye-hero.jpg",[670,354,400],"shutdown",{"path":672,"title":673,"description":674,"date":675,"author":6,"image":676,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":398,"tags":677,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-framework-in-the-description-field","The Framework in the Description Field","Our package called itself a framework, but it could not be installed. The fix was to stop trusting the build and become the stranger who installs the tarball.","2026-07-08T17:28:39.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fframework-description-field-hero.jpg",[678,400,370],"packaging",{"path":680,"title":681,"description":682,"date":683,"author":6,"image":684,"readingMinutes":408,"category":478,"project":348,"tags":685,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-always-asks","The Gate Always Asks","A release automates things you cannot take back, so which of them may a machine do without asking a human? Pauses, and a yes flag that opens no door.","2026-07-21T17:15:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-always-asks-hero.jpg",[532,686,490,482],"human-in-the-loop",{"path":688,"title":689,"description":690,"date":691,"author":6,"image":692,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":693,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-went-red-and-it-was-right","The Gate Went Red, and It Was Right","We added the missing check on our API specification and it failed on its first run, because the file was never a function of the source. A clean machine saw it.","2026-07-09T10:10:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fgate-went-red-hero.jpg",[369,381,370],{"path":695,"title":696,"description":697,"date":698,"author":6,"image":699,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":398,"tags":700,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-knock-and-the-axe","The Knock and the Axe","SIGTERM is a request your process can hear and SIGKILL is removal it never sees, and the fixed window between them is exactly where graceful shutdown lives.","2026-07-20T12:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-knock-and-the-axe-hero.jpg",[670,381,701],"signals",{"path":703,"title":704,"description":705,"date":706,"author":6,"image":707,"readingMinutes":617,"category":365,"project":398,"tags":708,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-line-nothing-could-see","The Line Nothing Could See","Reviewing the reasoning under a refactor, not only the diff. Ask of every line what can observe it, and back each review claim with a test the author can run.","2026-07-07T22:43:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-line-nothing-could-see-hero.jpg",[654,603,709,400],"teaching",{"path":711,"title":712,"description":713,"date":714,"author":6,"image":715,"readingMinutes":349,"category":478,"project":398,"tags":716,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-long-way-round","The Long Way Round","The count a method computes reaches the screen not through its return value but by being written into a collection a client subscribes to, EkoLite's channel.","2026-07-20T11:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-long-way-round-hero.jpg",[490,594,354],{"path":718,"title":719,"description":720,"date":721,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":376,"category":377,"project":378,"tags":722,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":58},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-page-that-existed-only-when-someone-linked-to-it","The Page That Existed Only When Someone Linked to It","Our blog vanished in production while passing every local check. How we found the cause, fixed it twice, and how the fix gave every page a twin.","2026-08-22T16:00:00.000Z",[380,381,382],{"path":724,"title":725,"description":726,"date":727,"author":6,"image":728,"readingMinutes":617,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":729,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-previews-that-served-production","The Previews That Served Production","Two weeks after the container that was not there, the same impossible error came back. The orphans were our own pull request previews. One diagnosis was wrong.","2026-07-31T17:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fpreviews-served-production-hero.jpg",[381,619,620,621],{"path":731,"title":732,"description":733,"date":734,"author":6,"image":735,"readingMinutes":408,"category":365,"project":348,"tags":736,"draft":346,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-release-is-the-acceptance-test","The Release Is the Acceptance Test","Not a green suite, not a good demo: a real version of a real package, live on npm, shipped by the tool. What red first tests proved, and what only reality did.","2026-07-21T17:35:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frelease-acceptance-test-hero.jpg",[533,737,738,482],"dogfooding","acceptance-testing",{"path":740,"title":741,"description":742,"date":743,"author":6,"image":744,"readingMinutes":376,"category":339,"project":398,"tags":745,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-script-that-never-ran","The Script That Never Ran","Joining two abilities EkoLite already had, a method that runs and a runner that shells out, and proving the join with a nulled runner before any script exists.","2026-07-20T11:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-script-that-never-ran-hero.jpg",[400,354,746],"scriptrunner",{"path":748,"title":749,"description":750,"date":751,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":617,"category":377,"project":378,"tags":752,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":349},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-small-things-the-crawler-notices","The Small Things the Crawler Notices","Speed is the part of findability you can measure on a laptop. Fonts and images we shipped without looking, an error page we did not have, and the numbers after.","2026-08-23T10:00:00.000Z",[380,381,753],"performance",{"path":755,"title":756,"description":757,"date":758,"author":6,"image":759,"readingMinutes":376,"category":339,"project":398,"tags":760,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-test-that-could-not-fail","The Test That Could Not Fail","A green test that stayed green when we deleted the behaviour it was named after, and the single blunt question that exposed it.","2026-07-20T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftest-that-could-not-fail-hero.jpg",[400,354,401],{"path":762,"title":763,"description":764,"date":765,"author":554,"image":766,"readingMinutes":349,"category":365,"project":767,"tags":768,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-website-that-told-the-same-story-twice","The Website That Told the Same Story Twice","Our home and story pages felt like one story across two screens. Rather than argue by taste, we modelled our words as data and asked a database one question.","2026-06-06","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-same-story-twice-hero.jpg","The Website",[370,769,513,709],"content",{"path":771,"title":772,"description":773,"date":590,"author":6,"image":774,"readingMinutes":447,"category":339,"project":398,"tags":775,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-words-we-work-in","The Words We Work In","The vocabulary we test with, Nullable, embedded stub, stub object, output tracking, each grounded in real code so a review points at a line, never at taste.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-words-we-work-in-hero.jpg",[354,400,370,709],{"path":777,"title":778,"description":779,"date":765,"author":554,"image":780,"readingMinutes":408,"category":365,"project":767,"tags":781,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-workflow-is-the-lesson","The Workflow Is the Lesson","We are moving our content out of a cloud CMS and into git. Why a school that teaches a keyboard first way of working should practise it in the open, and how.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fworkflow-lesson-hero.png",[782,368,709,783],"workflow","accessibility",{"path":785,"title":786,"description":787,"date":788,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":349,"category":339,"project":366,"tags":789,"draft":342,"series":585,"seriesOrder":75},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwenty-six-more-tests-four-fewer-behaviours","Twenty Six More Tests, Four Fewer Behaviours","Removing the mocks grew the suite from 44 tests to 70 and quietly deleted four behaviours, every one of them a failure path. Test count is not coverage.","2026-08-28T09:00:00.000Z",[400,354,524,584],{"path":791,"title":792,"description":793,"date":794,"author":6,"image":795,"readingMinutes":376,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":796,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hands-on-one-lever","Two Hands on One Lever","Our deploy failed with a deploy already in progress while the commit it wanted to ship was going live. Anatomy of a benign collision and a trigger safe to lose.","2026-07-23T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hands-on-one-lever-hero.jpg",[381,417,797],"observability",{"path":799,"title":800,"description":801,"date":802,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":376,"category":339,"project":366,"tags":803,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hundred-and-fourteen-undecided","Two Hundred and Fourteen Undecided","An accessibility scanner found three faults on the dojo, we fixed them, and the next run came back clean. The clean run was the dangerous one.","2026-08-22T12:00:00.000Z",[783,400,490,370],{"path":805,"title":806,"description":807,"date":808,"author":6,"image":809,"readingMinutes":99,"category":478,"project":366,"tags":810,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-validators-one-gate","Two Validators, One Gate","Validating one request body twice, with a Fastify schema and again with Zod, is not double safety. The second gate is unreachable. One validator; Zod for types.","2026-07-07T22:06:46.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-validators-one-gate-hero.jpg",[490,811,812],"validation","typescript",{"path":814,"title":815,"description":816,"date":817,"author":6,"image":818,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":366,"tags":819,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwe-are-all-doing-asynchronous-integration","We Are All Doing Asynchronous Integration","A continuous integration server is not continuous integration. The forge tests your work after you have moved on. Our build takes three minutes; no excuse.","2026-07-09T09:46:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fasynchronous-integration-hero.jpg",[369,381,416],{"path":821,"title":822,"description":823,"date":824,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":376,"category":377,"project":378,"tags":825,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":376},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwe-promised-not-to-watch-then-we-needed-to-see","We Promised Not to Watch. Then We Needed to See.","Our privacy policy said no analytics, and it was true. Adding a page counter meant reopening that promise in public: what we chose, what we refused, one commit.","2026-08-24T10:00:00.000Z",[390,381,826],"analytics",{"path":828,"title":829,"description":830,"date":831,"author":6,"image":832,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":348,"tags":833,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-one-real-release-taught-us","What One Real Release Taught Us in an Afternoon","Two crashes and one near miss within minutes of touching the real GitHub, because we had refused to fake it. The race we never met, the merge that never came.","2026-07-21T17:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-real-release-hero.jpg",[533,834,354,482],"failure-modes",{"path":836,"title":837,"description":838,"date":839,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":349,"category":377,"project":378,"tags":840,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":408},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-the-link-looks-like-before-anyone-clicks","What the Link Looks Like Before Anyone Clicks","A link to any page on our site showed up as a bare rectangle of text. The share image is part of the page, and the build now puts one on every route.","2026-08-22T22:00:00.000Z",[380,381,382],{"path":842,"title":843,"description":844,"date":845,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":349,"category":339,"project":366,"tags":846,"draft":342,"series":585,"seriesOrder":99},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-the-nullable-gave-back","What the Nullable Gave Back","One file, seven behaviours held fixed, the database swapped for a Nullable: about 180 times less time inside the tests, and coverage flat to two decimals.","2026-08-29T09:00:00.000Z",[400,354,524,584],{"path":848,"title":849,"description":850,"date":851,"author":6,"image":344,"readingMinutes":376,"category":377,"project":378,"tags":852,"draft":342,"series":383,"seriesOrder":617},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-we-count-and-what-we-refuse-to-know","What We Count, and What We Refuse to Know","Every system that holds anything about a visitor, in one table in the privacy policy. Writing it found a form that no longer existed and one that wrote twice.","2026-08-23T14:00:00.000Z",[390,381,826],{"path":854,"title":855,"description":856,"date":857,"author":6,"image":858,"readingMinutes":408,"category":478,"project":344,"tags":344,"draft":342,"series":344,"seriesOrder":344},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-good-software-starts-with-the-right-questions","Why Good Software Starts with the Right Questions","Before writing a line of code, the most impactful thing a team can do is ask better questions. Discovery is not a phase to rush. It is the foundation.","2026-01-15T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fright-questions-hero.jpg",1787861096092]