Engineering notes

Engineering notes on custom software.

Technical write-ups on architecture, deployment, e-commerce and AI features in custom platforms, written for engineers and technical owners. Want the plain-English version? Start with the field guides.

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§01Latest notes

How we build, in technical detail.

Architecture decisions, problems we solved in production, and the patterns we use when building custom platforms. Filter by topic below.

Featured noteEngineering

Fixing Broken Styles After Deploy: Next.js, Cloud Run, and a Custom GCS Cache Handler

After a Cloud Run deploy, cached Next.js HTML can reference CSS that no longer exists. Here’s how we fixed broken styling with a GCS cache handler scoped by build ID.

June 10, 2026 · 9 min readRead the note

AI & automation6 min read

Grounded AI Assistants for Your Product (Without the Chatbot Chaos)

Generic chatbots guess. Grounded assistants answer from approved business knowledge, live product data, and — for staff — a snapshot of what needs attention today. A practical pattern for building customer and internal AI help into custom platforms without the hallucination tax.

June 17, 2026Read

§02Field guides

Prefer plain English? Start here.

Insights are our engineering notes. The field guides cover the decisions behind a fast, owned website without the jargon, from reading a PageSpeed score to choosing a platform.

All plain-English guides

Field guide 001Website speed

PageSpeed Insights explained for business owners

What Google's PageSpeed score measures, how to read it, why it changes between runs, and what to do about a low one. No jargon.

7 min readNew to this

Field guide 005Choosing a platform

Website builder, Shopify, WordPress or custom? An honest comparison

The four common ways to build a business website or online store, what each is good at, what to watch for, and when custom is the wrong call.

8 min readNew to this

Field guide 003AI-built apps

The production checklist for apps built with AI tools

Built something with Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or v0? What to check before real customers, payments and data arrive, in plain language.

8 min readSome experience

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