GitHub Actions Self-Hosted Runner on Linux: Setup Guide
When my GitHub Actions minutes ran out, I made a Linux server a self-hosted runner: dedicated user, SHA256 check, systemd, labels and security trade-offs.
Posts
All posts: MCP servers, AI agents, open-source contributions, Python, trading bots and DevOps.
2026
freqtrade-mcp: An MCP Server for Your Freqtrade Bot
My TypeScript MCP server that exposes the Freqtrade REST API to Claude and other MCP clients: 19 tools, setup, code layout and live-trading caveats.
awesome-trending-repos: Tracking GitHub Trending Daily
How my open source tracker scrapes GitHub Trending every day, compares it with past snapshots and publishes a React dashboard to GitHub Pages with Actions.
CLI-Anything Browser Harness: My First MCP Backend PR
How PR #118 added browser automation to CLI-Anything through the DOMShell MCP server: architecture, review, bugs found after merge, and a security fix.
Keploy Contribution: Go defer and HTTP Body Leaks
Two merged PRs to Keploy: a function that read from a closed file and HTTP response bodies that were never closed. What they taught me about defer in Go.
SDK and CLI PRs: Jules, NotebookLM, Mission Control
Four PRs to Jules SDK, notebooklm-py, cli-agent and Mission Control: two merged, two closed. The code, the design choices, and why each one ended as it did.
Security and API Fixes in Open Source: 3 Pull Requests
A Cypher injection in LightRAG, a wrong enum value in the OpenAI Python SDK and hardcoded decimals in Coinbase AgentKit: three PRs, how each ended, and why.
MCP Open Source Contributions: Playwright, GitHub, LobeHub
My PRs to Playwright MCP, the GitHub MCP Server and LobeHub: which were merged, which were closed, and what the reviews taught me. With code and links.
AI Face Detector: Spotting AI-Made Faces with MobileNetV2
AI Face Detector classifies a face photo as real or StyleGAN-generated: MobileNetV2 transfer learning, a FastAPI service, and an honest look at its limits.
Letting an AI Agent Publish My Gemini Challenge Entry
For the Built with Google Gemini challenge, an AI agent wrote my entry and published it to DEV through DevTo-MCP. What worked, and the errors that slipped in.
Telegram Wallet P2P SDKs for Python, Node.js and MCP
Unofficial Python and Node.js SDKs plus an MCP server for Telegram Wallet's read-only P2P market API, with notes on decimals, pagination and rate limits.
DevTo-MCP: Building an MCP Server for the DEV Community API
DevTo-MCP connects the DEV Community (Forem) API to assistants like Claude: Zod input checks, a retrying API client, a draft fallback and an npm naming lesson.
OmniWire-MCP: A Fault-Tolerant News Server for AI Agents
OmniWire-MCP serves RSS, Atom, JSON and HTML sources to AI assistants, with a circuit breaker per source, content sniffing, Zod schemas and a bumpy npm release.
Memoryze: A Spaced Repetition App with React and Supabase
How I built Memoryze in one night: the SM-2 algorithm, Supabase auth and row level security, a 3D card flip in Framer Motion, and two bugs I still need to fix.
Adding Lookaround to Google RE2: A Proof of Concept
My fork that adds bounded lookaround to Google RE2 without backtracking, the #585 issue I opened, and what EPFL's unbounded lookbehind work showed me.
Contributing to github-mcp-server: Two PRs, Zero Merges
My two pull requests to GitHub's official MCP server: a create_discussion tool that is still open, and a read-only fix closed in favor of the maintainer's.
GitLab and Back to GitHub: Migrating My Jekyll Blog
When my GitHub account was suspended I moved my repos and Jekyll blog to GitLab, then came back. How GitLab CI and GitHub Actions differed, and what I kept.
2025
Apache Kafka Event Streaming with KRaft and Python
Event streaming on Kafka 4 without ZooKeeper (KRaft): partition sizing, a no-loss producer, offset commits and rebalance tuning, with confluent-kafka in Python.
Git Branching Strategies: GitFlow vs Trunk-Based
Git branching strategies compared: GitFlow, trunk-based development, merge queues, squash merges, Conventional Commits, pre-commit hooks and git bisect.
Python Context Managers: Resource Management with with
A practical guide to Python context managers: __enter__ and __exit__, contextlib.contextmanager, ExitStack, async with, FastAPI lifespan, locks and common bugs.
Modern Web UI Without a Framework: CSS and JavaScript
A modern web UI without a framework: container queries, :has() and CSS nesting, popover and dialog, Web Components, islands, and measuring Core Web Vitals.
Python Email Automation: smtplib, aiosmtplib and SPF
Python email automation done right: EmailMessage, smtplib with app passwords, aiosmtplib for batches, Jinja2 templates, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC for delivery.
Database Connection Pooling: SQLAlchemy and PgBouncer
Database connection pooling for PostgreSQL: SQLAlchemy 2 async pool settings, sizing limits per process, leaks, timeouts and PgBouncer transaction mode.
gRPC High-Performance APIs with Python asyncio
Service-to-service APIs with gRPC and Protobuf: grpcio asyncio server and client, streaming, deadlines, interceptors, schema evolution, HTTP/2 load balancing.
Advanced pytest: Fixtures, Mocking and Hypothesis
Advanced testing with pytest 8: fixture scopes, parametrize, mocking with mocker and respx, async tests, Hypothesis property tests, snapshots and CI settings.
MinIO Object Storage After the Community Edition Ended
Object storage with MinIO: stateless apps, boto3 and presigned URLs, erasure coding, object lock, and what to run now that the community edition is archived.
Real-Time WebSockets with FastAPI and Redis
Build a FastAPI WebSocket server, scale it across instances with Redis Pub/Sub, and handle pings, auth, Nginx proxying and client reconnects with backoff.
Prometheus and Grafana Monitoring: Production Notes
Prometheus and Grafana monitoring in practice: avoiding cardinality blowups, PromQL for the golden signals, recording rules, Alertmanager routing, Thanos.
RabbitMQ Message Queues with aio-pika: Reliable Setup
How to stop losing messages in RabbitMQ: prefetch, publisher confirms, quorum queues and dead letter exchanges, with working Python aio-pika examples.
Elasticsearch Full-Text Search in Production
Full-text search with Elasticsearch 8/9 and the Python client: strict mappings, language analyzers, zero-downtime reindexing with aliases, shards, pagination.
Nginx Load Balancing, Caching and Hardening Guide
Nginx as reverse proxy and load balancer: micro-caching, rate limiting, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, security headers and JSON logs. A practical guide for nginx 1.30.
Kubernetes Container Orchestration: A Production Guide
What to get right before running Kubernetes in production: resources and QoS, probes, CrashLoopBackOff debugging, Gateway API, Secrets, HPA and pod security.
Python Image Processing: Pillow or OpenCV?
Image processing in Python with Pillow 11+ and OpenCV 4.x: safe uploads, EXIF rotation, WebP, headless OpenCV in Docker and a background processing pipeline.
API Authentication Strategies: JWT, OAuth 2.1, Passkeys
API authentication strategies by caller: storing API keys safely, JWT pitfalls, OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, passkeys, mTLS between services, and FastAPI dependencies.
Python PDF Processing: pypdf, pdfplumber and WeasyPrint
Read, split, merge, encrypt and generate PDFs in Python: pypdf, pdfplumber for tables, WeasyPrint for HTML to PDF, OCRmyPDF for scans and pyHanko for signing.
GitHub Actions CI/CD Pipeline for a Python Project
A GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline for Python: tests with uv, Docker images on GHCR, approval-gated deploys, reusable workflows, OIDC and security hardening.
Python asyncio in Practice: TaskGroup, Timeouts, Semaphores
A practical Python asyncio guide: TaskGroup, asyncio.timeout, Semaphore, to_thread, except* and what Python 3.12 to 3.14 changed, with runnable examples.
Python Performance Profiling: cProfile, py-spy, Scalene
A practical guide to Python performance profiling: cProfile for functions, py-spy for live processes, Scalene for line-level CPU and memory, plus memray.
Python Logging Best Practices with structlog
Python logging best practices: stdlib logging rules, JSON logs with structlog, request IDs, redacting secrets, OpenTelemetry trace IDs, common mistakes.
Graceful Shutdown in Python: Signals, Docker, K8s, systemd
Graceful shutdown for Python services: catching SIGTERM in plain Python and asyncio, the Docker PID 1 trap, Kubernetes preStop and systemd services.
Celery vs Arq: Async Task Queues in Python
Celery vs Arq for Python task queues: safe Celery settings, an async Arq worker, idempotency, visibility timeouts, retries and Arq's maintenance mode.
Uptime Kuma Service Monitoring: Setup and Practical Tips
Self-hosted monitoring with Uptime Kuma 2: Docker setup, reverse proxy, keyword and push monitors, Telegram and webhook alerts, hardening and backups.
Building a Reliable Webhook Handler in Python
A reliable webhook handler in Python and FastAPI: HMAC signature checks, replay protection, a durable inbox table, idempotent processing and event fan-out.
API Rate Limiting in Python with Redis, Lua and FastAPI
API rate limiting in Python: token bucket vs sliding window, an atomic Redis Lua limiter, a FastAPI dependency, 429 with Retry-After, and client-side backoff.
MongoDB Schema Design with Python and Async PyMongo
MongoDB schema design in practice: embed or reference, schema validation, ESR index ordering, aggregation and transactions, with Python's async PyMongo API.
2024
Poetry vs uv: Comparing Python Project Management Tools
Poetry and uv for Python project management: lock files, dependency groups, Docker and CI setups, publishing. An honest comparison of when to use which.
SQLAlchemy 2.0 with MySQL: Async ORM, N+1 and Alembic
SQLAlchemy 2.0 with MySQL and PostgreSQL: typed Mapped models, async sessions, eager loading against N+1 queries, Alembic migrations and connection pool tuning.
Traefik v3 Reverse Proxy with Automatic SSL on Docker
A practical Traefik v3 setup for Docker: label-based routing, automatic Let's Encrypt SSL, middlewares, sticky sessions, canary releases and v2 migration traps.
Redis Caching and Session Management in Python
Redis caching and session management with redis-py asyncio: cache-aside with stampede protection, server-side sessions, Streams, locks and eviction policies.
Fast Crypto Analysis in pandas 3: Vectorize, Then Polars
Crypto OHLCV analysis in pandas 3 without loops: the real cost of iterrows and apply, rolling signals, sane dtypes, Parquet, and a measured Polars test.
Dockerizing a Python App with uv and Multi-Stage Builds
How I dockerize Python apps: a multi-stage Dockerfile with uv, a non-root user, a healthcheck without curl, Docker Compose for local dev and SHA image tags.
Automated Trading Systems in Python: Architecture and Risk
Structuring an automated trading system in Python with CCXT and asyncio: WebSocket data, order precision, testnet, position sizing and honest backtests.
Smart Contract Testing with Hardhat 3 and Ethers v6
Testing Solidity contracts with Hardhat 3, ethers v6 and Mocha: fixtures, time travel, custom errors, fuzzing, coverage, gas stats, mainnet forking and CI.
Build a Telegram Trading Bot in Python (PTB v22 + CCXT)
A private Telegram price-alert bot with python-telegram-bot v22 and async CCXT: JobQueue, user filters, persistence, token hygiene, and why it never trades.
Solana Program Development with Rust and Anchor 1.x
Solana program development with Rust and Anchor 1.x: accounts, PDAs, constraints, tests, security, and where Proof of History stands after Alpenglow.
Web3 Wallet Integration: EIP-6963, Ethers v6 and Reown
Web3 wallet integration today: EIP-6963 wallet discovery, ethers v6 BrowserProvider, chain switching, Reown AppKit for mobile, Sign-In with Ethereum.
Polygon PoS Architecture and Layer 2 Scaling Explained
How Polygon PoS works: Bor, Heimdall v2, checkpoints, POL and ~5-second finality. How it differs from rollups, the zkEVM shutdown, and notes for developers.
Ethereum with web3.py v7: Providers, Transactions, Events
Talking to Ethereum with web3.py v7: HTTP, async and WebSocket providers, signing EIP-1559 transactions, reading ERC-20s, chunked event logs and PoA chains.
AI-Powered Trading: What ML Models and LLM Agents Taught Me
My AI-powered trading experiments: a walk-forward validated ML model, a simple data leakage test, and lessons from Quorum, where LLM agents vote on trades.
Building a REST API with FastAPI, Pydantic v2 and Async
A practical FastAPI REST API guide: Pydantic v2 schemas, Annotated dependencies, async SQLAlchemy, testing and a lean Docker setup, with code that runs.
Flash Loan Arbitrage Bot: Lessons From My Python Prototype
DEX arbitrage with Aave V3 flash loans: what my Python bot did and didn't do, a Solidity contract that enforces profit on-chain, and mainnet fork tests.
How a DEX Aggregator Works: Quotes, Routing, Contracts
The parts of a DEX aggregator: Uniswap V2/V3 quotes with ethers v6, gas-adjusted comparison, split routing, a safe swap contract and MEV protection.
Solidity Security and Gas Optimization: A Practical Guide
Reentrancy, access control, proxy pitfalls, oracle manipulation and gas optimization in Solidity 0.8 with OpenZeppelin 5, plus Foundry tests and a checklist.
Blockchain Data Analysis in Python: Indexer, The Graph, Dune
On-chain data with Python: event subscriptions in web3.py, a small SQLAlchemy 2 indexer, The Graph and Dune APIs, and Telegram alerts for large transfers.
NFT Minting on Ethereum: ERC721A, Merkle Allowlist, Tests
An allowlist NFT contract with ERC721A and OpenZeppelin 5: Merkle proofs, IPFS metadata, Foundry tests, an ethers v6 mint button and a Sepolia deploy.
