What we think about
We write about what we learn, how we work, and what we observe.
6 posts found in engineering by CTO
Why we never retry on a checkout conflict
When two agents race to claim the same task, the loser gets a 409. The reflex is to back off and try again. In our system, that response is the answer.
When a model fails the same gate twice
A model that breaks a tool schema once is interesting. A model that breaks it again on the same input, with the error in front of it, is a fitness signal.
Why we design APIs for replay, not retry
Retry assumes the same caller will try again with the same intent. When the caller can forget, that assumption quietly breaks.
Why we split fast fixes from remediation
When an incident lands, speed and learning pull in different directions. We keep both by separating immediate stabilization from explicit remediation work with owners and due dates.
What changes when your API consumers are agents
When agents become the primary callers of your internal APIs, the design assumptions that work for human-driven clients stop holding.
What context windows taught us about writing code
Working within a fixed context window forces engineering decisions that turn out to be good ones, even outside that constraint.