[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":802},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew":3,"blog-all":303},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":286,"date":287,"description":288,"draft":289,"extension":290,"image":291,"meta":292,"navigation":137,"path":293,"project":294,"readingMinutes":216,"seo":295,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296,"stem":297,"tags":298,"__hash__":302},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew.md","The Design We Never Drew","EkoHacks Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":280},"minimark",[10,19,24,27,30,37,44,47,51,57,73,80,84,87,90,93,97,100,243,246,270,273,276],[11,12,13,14,18],"p",{},"Nobody drew the shape the upload code is taking. No one sat down at the start of EkoLite, our small real time backend, and decided that a file would travel over an ",[15,16,17],"code",{},"XMLHttpRequest"," behind a nulled transport, that a refused upload would come back in the same error envelope as a failed method call, that the client caller and the socket caller would turn out to be mirror images of one another. We did not draw any of it. It arrived. This is a post about how it arrived, and about the two habits that make arriving feel like progress rather than luck: writing the test first, and integrating all the time.",[20,21,23],"h2",{"id":22},"watching-a-shape-accrete","Watching a shape accrete",[11,25,26],{},"The clearest example is the method round trip, because you can watch it build itself a slice at a time. Calling a function on the server from the browser took three small steps, and not one of them drew the finished thing.",[11,28,29],{},"The first step was a registry. A little map that holds named functions and runs them, and fails in a predictable way when the name is unknown. No network, no sockets, nothing over the wire. Just define, call, and a clean error for a name that was never registered. We wrote the failing test, made it pass, tidied it, and stopped.",[11,31,32,33,36],{},"The second step put that registry on the wire. A message of the shape ",[15,34,35],{},"{ type: 'method' }"," arrives on the socket, gets routed to the registry, runs, and the result goes back down the same connection. When the method is missing or throws, an error goes back instead. Still small. Still one slice.",[11,38,39,40,43],{},"The third step was the client end. A ",[15,41,42],{},"call(name, args)"," that mints a request id, sends the message, and hands back a promise that the matching reply resolves or rejects. By the time this slice landed, the round trip was whole, and the interesting thing is that it had assembled itself out of three independent pieces that were each only trying to pass their own test.",[11,45,46],{},"Where does the shape come from, if not from the drawing? It comes from pressure. You feel the design before you can name it, and the practices are what turn the feeling into a decision.",[20,48,50],{"id":49},"the-forces-that-pulled-it","The forces that pulled it",[11,52,53,54,56],{},"Testability pulled the first shape. We do not mock here. A wrapper that needs to be driven in a test gets an off switch, a nulled version of itself that behaves like the real thing without reaching the world, and the way you keep that honest is to inject the thing that touches the outside rather than construct it inside your own code. The socket wrapper does exactly that, and when the uploader comes it will copy the move, an injected transport with a real implementation and a null one, because the moment it news up an ",[15,55,17],{}," of its own it stops being testable and we are back to fighting the browser in a unit test.",[11,58,59,60,62,63,66,67,69,70,72],{},"A need that had not arrived yet pulled the second. The uploader will run over ",[15,61,17],{}," and not ",[15,64,65],{},"fetch",", even though the happy path would be shorter with ",[15,68,65],{},", because a progress bar is coming in the next slice and ",[15,71,65],{}," cannot report upload progress. Choosing the harder transport now is not gold plating. It is putting the seam where the future need already is, so the next story adds a bar instead of rewriting the request. Design, a lot of the time, is just deciding where the seam goes.",[11,74,75,76,79],{},"Consistency pulled the third. A failing method already comes back as ",[15,77,78],{},"{ code, message }",". So when the upload route had to start refusing files, the question answered itself: refuse in the same envelope, and let the client reject with the same shape its method caller already rejects with. One error language across the socket and the HTTP route, not two. We are still finishing that convergence, the route has a couple of older replies in the old shape, and we have left a test sitting on that gap so it cannot be quietly forgotten. The shape is honest about being unfinished, and the next post is where it closes.",[20,81,83],{"id":82},"green-is-permission","Green is permission",[11,85,86],{},"None of this is tidy, and the practices are not there to make it look tidy. They are there to make change cheap.",[11,88,89],{},"At one point a method call could hang forever. If the connection dropped while a call was in flight, the promise never settled, because the teardown remembered to reject the open subscriptions and walked straight past the pending calls. It reached the main branch despite a review. That is the kind of sentence you are tempted to leave out of a blog post, and leaving it out would be the dishonest move, because the whole point is what happened next. One small test, a call started and the socket dropped, expecting a rejection rather than a wait. It went red against the live code and green the moment the teardown settled the pending calls too. Minutes, not a release.",[11,91,92],{},"That is what continuous integration buys you, and it is not really about a server running your tests. It is that every piece is integrated all the time, so a single failing test can stand on the whole system at once and say, here, this. When the suite is green you have permission to change the shape, because the thing that would tell you that you broke the round trip is already watching. Take that away and emergent design becomes a euphemism for hoping. Keep it and the design can keep moving, because every move is caught.",[20,94,96],{"id":95},"stand-where-we-are-standing","Stand where we are standing",[11,98,99],{},"You do not have to take our word for any of this, which is the part that matters most. You also do not need a socket to watch the round trip's shape, because the socket is only the registry with a wire in front of it. In a Node session or a test, build a null app and define a method on it, then call it the way the wire would:",[101,102,107],"pre",{"className":103,"code":104,"language":105,"meta":106,"style":106},"language-ts shiki shiki-themes github-dark","import { App } from 'ekolite';\n\nconst app = App.createNull();\napp.methods.define('greet', (name) => `hello ${String(name)}`);\n\nawait app.methods.call('greet', ['world']); \u002F\u002F 'hello world'\n","ts","",[15,108,109,132,139,162,209,214],{"__ignoreMap":106},[110,111,114,118,122,125,129],"span",{"class":112,"line":113},"line",1,[110,115,117],{"class":116},"snl16","import",[110,119,121],{"class":120},"s95oV"," { App } ",[110,123,124],{"class":116},"from",[110,126,128],{"class":127},"sU2Wk"," 'ekolite'",[110,130,131],{"class":120},";\n",[110,133,135],{"class":112,"line":134},2,[110,136,138],{"emptyLinePlaceholder":137},true,"\n",[110,140,142,145,149,152,155,159],{"class":112,"line":141},3,[110,143,144],{"class":116},"const",[110,146,148],{"class":147},"sDLfK"," app",[110,150,151],{"class":116}," =",[110,153,154],{"class":120}," App.",[110,156,158],{"class":157},"svObZ","createNull",[110,160,161],{"class":120},"();\n",[110,163,165,168,171,174,177,180,184,187,190,193,196,198,200,203,206],{"class":112,"line":164},4,[110,166,167],{"class":120},"app.methods.",[110,169,170],{"class":157},"define",[110,172,173],{"class":120},"(",[110,175,176],{"class":127},"'greet'",[110,178,179],{"class":120},", (",[110,181,183],{"class":182},"s9osk","name",[110,185,186],{"class":120},") ",[110,188,189],{"class":116},"=>",[110,191,192],{"class":127}," `hello ${",[110,194,195],{"class":157},"String",[110,197,173],{"class":127},[110,199,183],{"class":120},[110,201,202],{"class":127},")",[110,204,205],{"class":127},"}`",[110,207,208],{"class":120},");\n",[110,210,212],{"class":112,"line":211},5,[110,213,138],{"emptyLinePlaceholder":137},[110,215,217,220,223,226,228,230,233,236,239],{"class":112,"line":216},6,[110,218,219],{"class":116},"await",[110,221,222],{"class":120}," app.methods.",[110,224,225],{"class":157},"call",[110,227,173],{"class":120},[110,229,176],{"class":127},[110,231,232],{"class":120},", [",[110,234,235],{"class":127},"'world'",[110,237,238],{"class":120},"]); ",[110,240,242],{"class":241},"sAwPA","\u002F\u002F 'hello world'\n",[11,244,245],{},"That is the first two slices with the network taken out: a registry that holds the function, and a call that finds it and hands the result back. Now break it on purpose. Ask for a name nobody registered and watch the predictable failure the very first slice built, a clean rejection rather than a hang or a crash:",[101,247,249],{"className":103,"code":248,"language":105,"meta":106,"style":106},"await app.methods.call('nope', []); \u002F\u002F rejects: method not found\n",[15,250,251],{"__ignoreMap":106},[110,252,253,255,257,259,261,264,267],{"class":112,"line":113},[110,254,219],{"class":116},[110,256,222],{"class":120},[110,258,225],{"class":157},[110,260,173],{"class":120},[110,262,263],{"class":127},"'nope'",[110,265,266],{"class":120},", []); ",[110,268,269],{"class":241},"\u002F\u002F rejects: method not found\n",[11,271,272],{},"The predictable failure from the first slice, still there at the edge, whether the call came in over a socket or in process.",[11,274,275],{},"Design here is a verb. Extreme Programming gives you the small steps, continuous integration gives you the nerve to take them, and the shape shows up. If you ever do draw it, the drawing is the map you make after the walk, not the one you set out with.",[277,278,279],"style",{},"html pre.shiki code .snl16, html code.shiki .snl16{--shiki-default:#F97583}html pre.shiki code .s95oV, html code.shiki .s95oV{--shiki-default:#E1E4E8}html pre.shiki code .sU2Wk, html code.shiki .sU2Wk{--shiki-default:#9ECBFF}html pre.shiki code .sDLfK, html code.shiki .sDLfK{--shiki-default:#79B8FF}html pre.shiki code .svObZ, html code.shiki .svObZ{--shiki-default:#B392F0}html pre.shiki code .s9osk, html code.shiki .s9osk{--shiki-default:#FFAB70}html pre.shiki code .sAwPA, html code.shiki .sAwPA{--shiki-default:#6A737D}html .default .shiki span {color: var(--shiki-default);background: var(--shiki-default-bg);font-style: var(--shiki-default-font-style);font-weight: var(--shiki-default-font-weight);text-decoration: var(--shiki-default-text-decoration);}html .shiki span {color: var(--shiki-default);background: var(--shiki-default-bg);font-style: var(--shiki-default-font-style);font-weight: var(--shiki-default-font-weight);text-decoration: var(--shiki-default-text-decoration);}",{"title":106,"searchDepth":134,"depth":134,"links":281},[282,283,284,285],{"id":22,"depth":134,"text":23},{"id":49,"depth":134,"text":50},{"id":82,"depth":134,"text":83},{"id":95,"depth":134,"text":96},"Design and Architecture","2026-07-20T10:00:00.000Z","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.",false,"md","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew-hero.jpg",{},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew","EkoLite",{"title":5,"description":288},null,"blog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew",[299,300,301],"design","tdd","continuous integration","Q0Mr2J5MJFJUc-e-S7gs0CjA2ANhlVBfm8E7DZSgdEU",[304,316,329,337,348,354,363,370,377,386,393,402,409,416,428,436,443,450,459,467,475,485,492,500,507,513,519,528,536,545,553,560,571,573,579,589,598,606,614,622,630,637,645,653,660,666,673,682,690,697,704,713,719,727,733,741,747,756,763,770,778,784,790,796],{"path":305,"title":306,"description":307,"date":308,"author":6,"image":309,"readingMinutes":216,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":312,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-branch-is-inventory","A Branch Is Inventory","Unintegrated code is stock in a warehouse, and it depreciates. Our branch was one merge behind the trunk and that was enough for a conflict. What waiting costs.","2026-07-09T09:38:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fa-branch-is-inventory-hero.jpg","Craft and Practice","The Dojo",[313,314,315],"git","continuous-integration","craft",{"path":317,"title":318,"description":319,"date":320,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":324,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":141},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-map-drawn-by-the-build","A Map Drawn by the Build","Thirty six of our pages had never been visited by Google because nothing said they existed. The sitemap is drawn from the build, and it found a draft.","2026-08-22T20:30:00.000Z",7,"Shipping and Operations","ekohacks.com",[325,326,327],"seo","operations","nuxt","From Invisible to Findable",{"path":330,"title":331,"description":332,"date":333,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":334,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":336},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-privacy-policy-you-can-diff","A Privacy Policy You Can Diff","Our legal pages are files in the same repository as the site. Each now lists every change to its text, with the date and the diff, drawn from git at build time.","2026-08-23T16:00:00.000Z",[335,326,327],"privacy",9,{"path":338,"title":339,"description":340,"date":341,"author":6,"image":342,"readingMinutes":321,"category":343,"project":294,"tags":344,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fan-off-switch-not-a-disguise","An Off Switch, Not a Disguise","A Nullable differs from a stub in whether production code can tell the fake is there. Finding the word fixed a socket wrapper that had been lying to its tests.","2026-07-20T09:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fan-off-switch-not-a-disguise-hero.jpg","Testing and TDD",[345,346,347],"nullables","testing","websocket",{"path":349,"title":350,"description":351,"date":352,"author":6,"image":353,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":296,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fbuilding-engineering-teams-that-learn-together","Building Engineering Teams That Learn Together","The strongest engineering teams are not the ones with the most talented individuals. They are the ones that have learned how to learn together.","2026-02-05T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fteams-that-learn-together-hero.jpg",{"path":355,"title":356,"description":357,"date":358,"author":6,"image":359,"readingMinutes":164,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":360,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fderived-state-recompute","The Fix Was Merged, but the Numbers Were Still Wrong","We fixed a scoring bug, reviewed it, merged it, and production still showed the old numbers. Derived data is a cache that goes stale, and it must be recomputed.","2026-07-08T21:43:55.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fderived-state-recompute-hero.jpg",[326,361,362],"deployment","idempotency",{"path":364,"title":365,"description":366,"date":367,"author":368,"image":369,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":296,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fdockerising-nestjs-nuxt-monorepo-with-pnpm","Dockerising a NestJS and Nuxt Monorepo with pnpm","Dockerising a NestJS and Nuxt monorepo with pnpm: separate multi stage Dockerfiles for development and production, one Compose file, reproducible environments.","2026-02-09T09:00:00.000Z","Ogochukwu Okpala","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fdocker-monorepo-hero.png",{"path":371,"title":372,"description":373,"date":374,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":375,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":376},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffifty-posts-and-an-empty-robots-txt","Fifty Posts and an Empty robots.txt","Our site scored 100 for SEO and nobody could find it. The audit that started a series on making a site findable, and on what measuring visitors costs them.","2026-08-21T14:30:00.000Z",[325,326,315],0,{"path":378,"title":379,"description":380,"date":381,"author":6,"image":382,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":383,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffrom-convention-to-plugin","From Convention to Plugin","A five step procedure for webhook signature checks, easy to forget and silent when you did, became one Fastify plugin. The safe path is now impossible to skip.","2026-04-17T08:26:12.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ffrom-convention-to-plugin-hero.jpg",[315,384,385],"fastify","security",{"path":387,"title":388,"description":389,"date":390,"author":6,"image":391,"readingMinutes":211,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":392,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fintegrate-against-the-trunk","Integrate Against the Trunk, Not Your Copy of It","A rebase onto a stale local main succeeds, looks resolved, and leaves the pull request conflicting. Everything on your machine is a photograph of the trunk.","2026-07-09T09:22:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fintegrate-against-the-trunk-hero.jpg",[313,314,326],{"path":394,"title":395,"description":396,"date":397,"author":6,"image":398,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":399,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Flandmines","Landmines","Most CLAUDE.md files grow because documenting a convention feels like progress. Ours holds landmines only: facts the code cannot tell you, costly to step on.","2026-04-17T10:15:06.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Flandmines-hero.jpg",[315,400,401],"documentation","ai-agents",{"path":403,"title":404,"description":405,"date":406,"author":6,"image":407,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":408,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fnever-break-the-build","Never Break the Build","If the software worked five minutes ago, only five minutes of change can be to blame. What a green trunk buys, who pays for it, and a check that could not fail.","2026-07-09T09:54:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fnever-break-the-build-hero.jpg",[314,326,346],{"path":410,"title":411,"description":412,"date":413,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":414,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":134},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-address-per-page","One Address per Page","Every page on our site answered with a redirect before it answered with a page. How we made the build emit one address, declare it, and check it live.","2026-08-22T18:30:00.000Z",[325,326,327,415],"netlify",{"path":417,"title":418,"description":419,"date":420,"author":6,"image":421,"readingMinutes":164,"category":286,"project":422,"tags":423,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-command-three-policies","One Command, Three Policies, Zero Duplication","Preflight, cut and ship each worked alone before one command composed them. Why the composition layer is forty lines, and how the scrollback became the record.","2026-07-21T17:20:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-command-three-policies-hero.jpg","The EkoHacks CLI",[424,425,426,427],"composition","cli-design","narration","encoding-the-release",{"path":429,"title":430,"description":431,"date":432,"author":6,"image":433,"readingMinutes":321,"category":286,"project":294,"tags":434,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-way-to-fail","One Way to Fail","Closing the convergence so an upload fails in the same error shape as every other call, mostly by deleting the code that made the two shapes differ.","2026-07-20T10:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-way-to-fail-hero.jpg",[299,345,435],"error handling",{"path":437,"title":438,"description":439,"date":440,"author":6,"image":441,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":442,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fready-to-ship-not-ready-to-release","Ready to Ship, Not Ready to Release","Most teams hide a delay between saying done and being able to ship. Being ready to release at any moment, and why our deploy ships the commit that was tested.","2026-07-09T10:02:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fready-to-ship-hero.jpg",[314,361,326],{"path":444,"title":445,"description":446,"date":447,"author":6,"image":448,"readingMinutes":216,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":449,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Frebase-or-merge-is-the-wrong-argument","Rebase or Merge Is the Wrong Argument","Both commands reconcile the same commits and hit the same conflicts. What differs is when you resolve them. The loud argument hides a quiet one: long branches.","2026-07-09T09:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frebase-or-merge-hero.jpg",[313,314,315],{"path":451,"title":452,"description":453,"date":454,"author":6,"image":455,"readingMinutes":141,"category":286,"project":311,"tags":456,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Freconstructing-the-past","Reconstructing the Past","Connect a repository with a year of history and a trend curve reaches back months. How a system shows a past it never saw, recomputed from one source of truth.","2026-07-07T21:26:35.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Freconstructing-the-past-hero.jpg",[299,457,458],"data","onboarding",{"path":460,"title":461,"description":462,"date":463,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":343,"project":422,"tags":464,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fretiring-a-board","Retiring a Board: User Testing a CLI Before You Ship It","An afternoon of user testing against a real Linear board, and the four findings a green test suite could never have written.","2026-08-01T10:20:00.000Z",[465,345,425,466],"user-testing","linear",{"path":468,"title":469,"description":470,"date":471,"author":6,"image":472,"readingMinutes":211,"category":343,"project":311,"tags":473,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-testing-without-mocks","Retrofitting Testing Without Mocks","The server had 37 vi.mock calls and no test that touched the database. 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",[346,345,474],"mocks",{"path":476,"title":477,"description":478,"date":479,"author":6,"image":480,"readingMinutes":164,"category":322,"project":422,"tags":481,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[482,483,484,427],"automation","releasing","process",{"path":486,"title":487,"description":488,"date":454,"author":6,"image":489,"readingMinutes":141,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":490,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[326,362,491],"webhooks",{"path":493,"title":494,"description":495,"date":496,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":497,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[498,499,424,326],"shell","provisioning",{"path":501,"title":502,"description":503,"date":296,"author":504,"image":505,"readingMinutes":113,"category":286,"project":506,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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":508,"title":509,"description":510,"date":511,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":343,"project":323,"tags":512,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":211},"\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",[325,346,327],{"path":514,"title":515,"description":516,"date":517,"author":6,"image":518,"readingMinutes":134,"category":343,"project":296,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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":520,"title":521,"description":522,"date":523,"author":6,"image":524,"readingMinutes":211,"category":343,"project":422,"tags":525,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[345,526,527,427],"testing-without-mocks","james-shore",{"path":529,"title":530,"description":531,"date":532,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":343,"project":311,"tags":533,"draft":289,"series":535,"seriesOrder":113},"\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",[346,345,474,534],"coverage","What Mocks Cost",{"path":537,"title":538,"description":539,"date":540,"author":6,"image":541,"readingMinutes":211,"category":286,"project":294,"tags":542,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[543,544,346,300],"protocol","pubsub",{"path":546,"title":547,"description":548,"date":549,"author":6,"image":550,"readingMinutes":216,"category":343,"project":294,"tags":551,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[345,346,552],"refactoring",{"path":554,"title":555,"description":556,"date":557,"author":6,"image":558,"readingMinutes":211,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":559,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[313,314,315],{"path":561,"title":562,"description":563,"date":564,"author":6,"image":565,"readingMinutes":566,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":567,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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,[326,568,569,570],"debugging","european-tech","community",{"path":293,"title":5,"description":288,"date":287,"author":6,"image":291,"readingMinutes":216,"category":286,"project":294,"tags":572,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},[299,300,301],{"path":574,"title":575,"description":576,"date":577,"author":6,"image":578,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":296,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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":580,"title":581,"description":582,"date":583,"author":6,"image":584,"readingMinutes":321,"category":310,"project":311,"tags":585,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[586,587,588,466],"graphql","stories","xp",{"path":590,"title":591,"description":592,"date":593,"author":6,"image":594,"readingMinutes":211,"category":343,"project":422,"tags":595,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[300,596,597,427],"red-first","code-review",{"path":599,"title":600,"description":601,"date":602,"author":6,"image":603,"readingMinutes":211,"category":322,"project":422,"tags":604,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[483,605,313,427],"preflight",{"path":607,"title":608,"description":609,"date":610,"author":6,"image":611,"readingMinutes":211,"category":322,"project":294,"tags":612,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[613,345,346],"shutdown",{"path":615,"title":616,"description":617,"date":618,"author":6,"image":619,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":294,"tags":620,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[621,346,315],"packaging",{"path":623,"title":624,"description":625,"date":626,"author":6,"image":627,"readingMinutes":164,"category":286,"project":422,"tags":628,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[482,629,299,427],"human-in-the-loop",{"path":631,"title":632,"description":633,"date":634,"author":6,"image":635,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":636,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[314,326,315],{"path":638,"title":639,"description":640,"date":641,"author":6,"image":642,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":294,"tags":643,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[613,326,644],"signals",{"path":646,"title":647,"description":648,"date":649,"author":6,"image":650,"readingMinutes":566,"category":310,"project":294,"tags":651,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[597,552,652,346],"teaching",{"path":654,"title":655,"description":656,"date":657,"author":6,"image":658,"readingMinutes":216,"category":286,"project":294,"tags":659,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[299,544,345],{"path":661,"title":662,"description":663,"date":664,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":665,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":113},"\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",[325,326,327],{"path":667,"title":668,"description":669,"date":670,"author":6,"image":671,"readingMinutes":566,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":672,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[326,568,569,570],{"path":674,"title":675,"description":676,"date":677,"author":6,"image":678,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":422,"tags":679,"draft":137,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[483,680,681,427],"dogfooding","acceptance-testing",{"path":683,"title":684,"description":685,"date":686,"author":6,"image":687,"readingMinutes":321,"category":343,"project":294,"tags":688,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[346,345,689],"scriptrunner",{"path":691,"title":692,"description":693,"date":694,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":566,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":695,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":216},"\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",[325,326,696],"performance",{"path":698,"title":699,"description":700,"date":701,"author":6,"image":702,"readingMinutes":321,"category":343,"project":294,"tags":703,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[346,345,347],{"path":705,"title":706,"description":707,"date":708,"author":504,"image":709,"readingMinutes":216,"category":310,"project":710,"tags":711,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[315,712,457,652],"content",{"path":714,"title":715,"description":716,"date":540,"author":6,"image":717,"readingMinutes":211,"category":343,"project":294,"tags":718,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[345,346,315,652],{"path":720,"title":721,"description":722,"date":708,"author":504,"image":723,"readingMinutes":164,"category":310,"project":710,"tags":724,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[725,313,652,726],"workflow","accessibility",{"path":728,"title":729,"description":730,"date":731,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":343,"project":311,"tags":732,"draft":289,"series":535,"seriesOrder":134},"\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",[346,345,474,534],{"path":734,"title":735,"description":736,"date":737,"author":6,"image":738,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":739,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[326,362,740],"observability",{"path":742,"title":743,"description":744,"date":745,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":343,"project":311,"tags":746,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[726,346,299,315],{"path":748,"title":749,"description":750,"date":751,"author":6,"image":752,"readingMinutes":141,"category":286,"project":311,"tags":753,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[299,754,755],"validation","typescript",{"path":757,"title":758,"description":759,"date":760,"author":6,"image":761,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":311,"tags":762,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[314,326,361],{"path":764,"title":765,"description":766,"date":767,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":768,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":321},"\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",[335,326,769],"analytics",{"path":771,"title":772,"description":773,"date":774,"author":6,"image":775,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":422,"tags":776,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",[483,777,345,427],"failure-modes",{"path":779,"title":780,"description":781,"date":782,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":783,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":164},"\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",[325,326,327],{"path":785,"title":786,"description":787,"date":788,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":216,"category":343,"project":311,"tags":789,"draft":289,"series":535,"seriesOrder":141},"\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",[346,345,474,534],{"path":791,"title":792,"description":793,"date":794,"author":6,"image":296,"readingMinutes":321,"category":322,"project":323,"tags":795,"draft":289,"series":328,"seriesOrder":566},"\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",[335,326,769],{"path":797,"title":798,"description":799,"date":800,"author":6,"image":801,"readingMinutes":164,"category":286,"project":296,"tags":296,"draft":289,"series":296,"seriesOrder":296},"\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",1787861096818]