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Practical thinking on architecture, AI, and building software that lasts.
Traditional SDLC vs the AI-Native Development Lifecycle — and Where SystemDox Fits
The software development lifecycle is being rewritten. Requirements, design, and build no longer happen in sequence — they evolve together, driven by AI agents. Here is how the AI-DLC differs from traditional SDLC, and how SystemDox fills the gap.
State-of-the-Art Multi-Tenant API Authorization with AWS Cognito
How to build a stateless, cache-safe multi-tenant API authorizer using Cognito Pre Token Generation v2 — eliminating per-request database lookups and fixing tenant-scoped caching.
RFC 7807: Why Your API Should Return Structured Error Details
How application/problem+json gives API clients predictable, machine-readable error responses — and why it belongs in your Lambda handlers, not API Gateway.
GitHub-Hosted Websites: How It Works — Own Your Content Forever
A complete guide to how PuglieseWeb builds websites that live in your GitHub repository. Edit with SystemDox, auto-publish via GitHub Pages — zero hosting costs, full revision history, no vendor lock-in.
Ad-Hoc SQL and Client Debugging with Athena: The Queries You Didn't Plan For
Predefined dashboards answer yesterday's questions. Ad-hoc SQL on your event lake answers tomorrow's. Here's how to use Athena for exploratory analysis, user timeline reconstruction, and deep client debugging — without blowing your AWS bill.
Data Lineage vs Business Flow Analytics: What Small Teams Actually Need
Enterprise data governance tools promise visibility into your data. But most small teams need to understand user behaviour, not Parquet file provenance. Here's how to tell the difference — and build what matters first.
From Exodus to Opportunity: Careers and Investments in European Digital Sovereignty
How Europeans can build careers and investment portfolios around the continent's accelerating shift away from US Big Tech toward open-source and European-controlled alternatives.
Building Data Products from Well-Defined Event Schemas on AWS
Build governed, discoverable data products by publishing CloudEvents-compliant business events through EventBridge to an S3 data lake — without coupling analytics to your operational database.
Ema Admin Assistant: Manage Your Website by Talking to It
How we built Ema Admin Assistant — an AI chatbot that lets business owners update their website content through conversation. No CMS forms, no waiting for developers.
Understanding the Three Layers of Modern AI Systems
A clear breakdown of how foundation models, skills, and retrieval-augmented generation work together to power modern AI applications.
Embedding Models: The Translation Layer Between Human Language and Machine Search
How embedding models turn words into numbers that machines can compare, why that matters for search and AI, and what to consider when choosing one.
RAG and Vector Databases: What Actually Happens When AI Answers Your Question
A practical explanation of how retrieval-augmented generation works, why vector databases matter, and when you should (and shouldn't) reach for them.
AI Agents: Orchestrator-Specialist Architecture
A practical guide to designing scalable, accurate, and maintainable AI agent systems using the Orchestrator-Specialist pattern for complex, multi-step task automation.
Lambda Lessons from Production: The Bugs Nobody Warns You About
Hard-won lessons from deploying AWS Lambda in production — layer path mistakes, silent auth failures, cold start surprises, and the IAM traps that cost hours to debug.
European Alternatives for Building AI-Powered Apps and Websites in 2026
A practical guide to the European software stack for building modern AI-powered applications — covering LLM inference, vector search, serverless compute, and storage alternatives that offer better data sovereignty, lower costs, and easier EU compliance.
The Multi-Tenancy Decision You Can't Take Back
Why tenancy is the one architectural choice that's genuinely painful to reverse — and the practical path from agency project to multi-tenant product.
My AI-Assisted Development Workflow with Claude Code in 2026
A practical, step-by-step walkthrough of how I use Claude Code to ship features faster — from identifying problems to planning epics, implementing, and testing. Includes 2026 best practices for AI-assisted development.
The Recommended Tech Stack for an AI-Powered Service Website in 2026 (Reality Check)
A practical, battle-tested tech stack for building a modern website with AI chatbot, RAG, booking system, feedback, and admin dashboard. Built for speed, maintainability, and real-world costs in 2026.
Living ADRs: How to Keep Architecture Decisions Up to Date
Architecture Decision Records only work if they stay current. Learn how to make ADRs a living part of your development workflow — not another stale wiki page.
Architecture Guardrails: Automating Compliance in Your CI/CD Pipeline
Stop relying on manual code reviews to catch architecture violations. Learn how to automate guardrails with fitness tests that run on every pull request.
Event-Driven Architecture on AWS: 5 Patterns That Actually Work
Practical event-driven architecture patterns using SQS, SNS, EventBridge, and DynamoDB Streams — with real-world trade-offs and when to use each.
The State of Documentation in 2025
Key insights from 444 documentation experts — technical writers, product managers, engineers, and leaders — on how teams build, measure, and evolve their documentation. Industry report sourced from GitBook.
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