Blog

Notes from building AI agents, security tools and cloud native systems, and what I learn along the way.

AGENT_FIELD_NOTES.md

AI agents in production

Benchmarks, traces and harness design from building and securing AI agents.

Nov 3, 2026 LinkedIn ↗

Catching Indirect Prompt Injection in Agent Traces

A web page told our support agent to look up a different customer, and the agent complied on 28 of 100 runs. How I found the leak in an Arize Phoenix trace, blocked it with a scope guardrail, and set up an Arize AX monitor on the injection rate.

ai-securityagent-observability
Oct 26, 2026 LinkedIn ↗

Agent Tool Selection: The Tool Your Agent Almost Called

Putting a decision model in front of an agent's tools and trusting its pick only above a confidence threshold cut empty or unfinished replies from 21 to 3 across 300 turns.

ai-agentsagent-observability
Oct 21, 2026 LinkedIn ↗

Prompt Caching Benchmark: High Cache Reuse Doesn't Always Mean Lower Cost

Benchmarking four models on multi-turn shopping-assistant conversations: the model with the highest cache reuse wasn't the cheapest, because output tokens drove most of the spend.

llm-costagent-observability
Jun 9, 2026 LinkedIn ↗

How to Detect Credential Theft in AI Agent Harness Traces

A practical approach to spotting off-tree credential reads and suspicious tool calls using the traces AI agents already emit.

ai-securityagent-observability
May 20, 2026

What We Learned Testing 7 Models Under the Same Agent Harness

Seven models, one GitHub agent harness and one evaluator: final-answer correctness stayed close, while latency, tool calls, retries and timeout risk varied far more.

ai-agentsagent-evaluation
May 12, 2026 LinkedIn ↗

Your AI Security Agent Has Root. Build the Harness Before You Ship It

Why production AI security agents need scoped tools, per-run isolation, auditable workflows, and secrets the model never directly holds.

ai-securityagent-infrastructure
Show all 7 ai agents in production
Nov 20, 2025 Medium ↗

Agent, AI Agent, Agentic System, MCP: What's the Difference?

At KubeCon NA 2025 a room full of engineers couldn't define these terms. A clear breakdown of agents, AI agents, agentic systems and where MCP fits.

ai-agentsmcp

ENGINEERING_NOTES.md

Engineering notes

Infrastructure, observability, cloud native, distributed systems and developer tooling.

Jun 15, 2025 Medium ↗

My $0 Vercel App Needed an Hourly Cron — That's a Pro Feature. Here's How I Kept It Free

Vercel's cron jobs require a Pro plan, but I found a way to run hourly scheduled tasks on my free-tier app without upgrading.

vercelserverless
Oct 17, 2023 LinkedIn ↗

Insights from the Cloud Native Sustainability India Mini-Conference

A recap of the first in-person Cloud Native Sustainability mini-conference in India: energy measurement tools, green computing strategies and cloud cost savings.

sustainabilitycloud-native
Apr 19, 2022 Medium ↗

Improve Observability Using Stackdriver Metrics Programmatically

Building observability for data pipelines on GCP: reading Pub/Sub and other Stackdriver metrics programmatically to track completeness and consistency.

observabilitygcp
Mar 9, 2022

What I Learned After Running the Wrong Set of Migrations on the Database

I applied the wrong migrations at work and broke access to the system. A deep dive into database migrations, schema versioning and how to recover safely.

databasesdevops
Sep 10, 2021

Enforcing Coding Best Practices with Automation

A practical guide to automating code quality enforcement using linters, pre-commit hooks, CI checks, and code review automation tools.

developer-experiencetooling
Jun 20, 2021

Designing Idempotent APIs

How to design APIs that are safe to retry, covering idempotency keys, HTTP method semantics, database strategies, and real-world patterns for building reliable distributed systems.

api-designdistributed-systems
Show all 16 engineering notes
May 4, 2021

Top 10 Productive Hacks for Software Developers

I asked developers in my network for their best productivity habits. The ten hacks that came up most, from focus blocks to tooling shortcuts.

productivitydeveloper-experience
May 3, 2021

Building a Custom Prometheus Exporter in Go

A step-by-step guide to building a custom Prometheus exporter in Go, covering metric types, the collector interface, exposing metrics via HTTP, and creating Grafana dashboards.

observabilityprometheus
Apr 28, 2021

Introduction to Message Queues

An overview of message queuing patterns including pub/sub and point-to-point, with a comparison of RabbitMQ and Apache Kafka and guidance on choosing the right tool.

distributed-systemsmessaging
Mar 15, 2021

Understanding Load Balancing: Concepts and Algorithms

A deep dive into load balancing algorithms including round-robin, least connections, IP hash, and weighted strategies, with guidance on when to use each approach.

distributed-systemsinfrastructure
May 20, 2020

Faster Builds with Docker Layer Caching

Optimize your Docker builds by understanding the layer caching system, writing cache-friendly Dockerfiles, using multi-stage builds, and configuring CI pipelines for maximum cache reuse.

dockerci-cd
May 7, 2020

How DNS Resolution Works

A comprehensive walkthrough of the DNS resolution process, from recursive resolvers to root servers, TLD servers, authoritative servers, caching, and TTL behavior.

networkinginfrastructure
Apr 21, 2020

Docker on Mac vs Linux: Key Differences

Understanding the architectural differences between Docker on macOS and Linux, including the hypervisor layer, filesystem performance, networking behavior, and practical implications for developers.

dockerdevops
Apr 21, 2020

Working with Git Submodules

A practical guide to Git submodules covering how to add, update, and clone repositories with submodules, along with common pitfalls and best practices.

gitdeveloper-tools
Apr 21, 2020

Monitoring Java Web Applications with Prometheus

A practical guide to monitoring Java web applications using Prometheus, covering JMX metrics, Micrometer integration, custom metrics, alerting rules, and dashboard best practices.

observabilityjava
Jun 10, 2019 Medium ↗

How to Kick Off Your Open Source Journey

A practical guide for developers looking to start contributing to open source, covering how to find projects, make your first contribution, build community relationships, and tips for programs like GSoC.

open-sourcecommunity

YEAR_LOGS.md

Year in review

Looking back on what I built, learned and shipped each year.

Dec 31, 2025 Medium ↗

Thank You, Next — 2025

A year-in-review reflecting on graduating from Cornell, joining Agno, speaking at KubeCon EU, working on AI agents, and life in New York City.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Dec 31, 2024 Medium ↗

Thank You, Next — 2024

A year-in-review reflecting on my Cornell journey, internship at Exostellar, becoming a CNCF Ambassador, and contributions to the cloud native community.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Dec 31, 2023 Medium ↗

Thank You, Next — 2023

A year-in-review reflecting on starting at Cornell University, co-founding Women in Cloud Native, contributing to LocalStack, and the big move to the United States.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Dec 31, 2022 Medium ↗

Thank You, Next — 2022

A year-in-review reflecting on speaking at DevOpsDays India, joining Women Tech Network, working at Gitpod, and open source contributions throughout the year.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Jan 4, 2022 Medium ↗

Thank You, Next — 2021

A year-in-review on 2021: chaos, adapting, supporting each other and prioritising what matters through the hardest phase of the pandemic.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Aug 1, 2021 Medium ↗

Thank You, July

A 2021 reflection on rest, reconnecting, creativity, mental health, and new beginnings.

year-in-reviewpersonal
Show all 7 year in review
Dec 31, 2020 Medium ↗

2020 at a Glance

A reflection on the experiences, changes, and lessons that shaped 2020.

year-in-reviewpersonal