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Tales from the trenches of backend engineering, system design, and building at scale.

Superpowers for Coding Agents: Turn Vague Requests Into Tested Changes
Aug 22, 2026#ai#programming#productivity#llm#prompt-engineering

Superpowers for Coding Agents: Turn Vague Requests Into Tested Changes

An in-depth overview of Superpowers: a structured coding-agent methodology for design approval, planning, TDD, subagent work, and review.

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Use grill-me to Pressure-Test an AI Implementation Plan Before Code
Aug 15, 2026#ai#productivity#architecture#llm#prompt-engineering

Use grill-me to Pressure-Test an AI Implementation Plan Before Code

A detailed guide to using grill-me to challenge architecture and product decisions before an AI coding agent starts implementation.

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Four AI Agent Skills That Make Coding Workflows Sharper
Aug 8, 2026#ai#programming#productivity#llm#prompt-engineering

Four AI Agent Skills That Make Coding Workflows Sharper

A practical 10-minute guide to using Caveman, Superpowers, grill-me, and handoff at the right stages of an AI-assisted engineering workflow.

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The Golden Rule of Payout Systems: Why "Pending" is Never a Failure
Aug 1, 2026#payments#fintech#distributed-systems#system-design

The Golden Rule of Payout Systems: Why "Pending" is Never a Failure

Why Pending is the safest state in payment systems. Transaction uncertainty as failure causes duplicate payments. Conservative state machines beat.

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Type-Driven Security: Reducing OWASP Risk With Strong Types
Jul 25, 2026#functional-programming#security#programming#type-systems

Type-Driven Security: Reducing OWASP Risk With Strong Types

How strong types can reduce common OWASP risks through DTOs, branded IDs, parameterized SQL, safe HTML handling, and runtime validation.

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Architecture from Day One: The Practical Guide to Scalable Backend Systems
Jul 18, 2026#programming#distributed-systems#architecture#performance#system-design

Architecture from Day One: The Practical Guide to Scalable Backend Systems

Building scalable backend systems: stateless design, caching, database sharding, CAP theorem, load balancing, EDA, and production performance patterns.

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