Notes on minimal infrastructure, composable modules, and pragmatic automation.
Joining CloudFront logs with JA4 fingerprints at ingestion time to classify every request — verified bots, spoofed crawlers, suspicious scrapers — before it reaches the dashboard.
READ MORE →How to capture TLS fingerprints at the CloudFront edge, route them through a serverless pipeline, and query them in Athena — using a CloudFront Function, a bash Lambda, SNS, Firehose, and S3.
READ MORE →User-Agent strings are trivially forged. TLS handshakes are not. How JA4 fingerprinting combined with ASN classification exposes distributed scraper clusters that look exactly like real browsers.
READ MORE →Publication events as Grafana annotations — overlaying the moment content goes live onto crawler, retrieval, and search performance timelines.
READ MORE →Raw requests are interesting, but how do we distinguish crawlers, retrieval systems, previews and humans?
READ MORE →Building a Visibility Layer for a Static Website with CloudFront, Athena and Grafana
READ MORE →Analyze web traffic with composable shell functions and goaccess. Separate humans from bots, track search traffic, measure LLM consumption — then export to Grafana.
READ MORE →Crawl the entire Terraform AWS module registry, extract metadata, analyze composition patterns. Which modules get reused? Which namespaces ship continuously?
READ MORE →Collect all your commits across orgs, users, and collaborator repos with gh + jq. Merge into a single JSON dataset. Visualize engineering cadence in Grafana.
READ MORE →First-party web analytics with zero dependencies: browser fetch → bash Lambda → curl SigV4 → SNS → Firehose → partitioned S3 → Athena. Under $1/month.
READ MORE →Scrape AWS Lambda runtimes, cache at the edge, serve as JSON. A shell script, a CloudFront behavior, and a cron-free refresh strategy.
READ MORE →A series on building lightweight data collection pipelines with shell scripts, AWS primitives, and Grafana.
READ MORE →A Terraform module that turns shell scripts into Lambda functions with sub-20ms cold starts. Deploy the runtime once as a layer, then ship pure shell scripts as function packages.
READ MORE →A Terraform module for receiving email on your domain and forwarding it to an existing inbox using Amazon SES, S3, and Lambda
READ MORE →How we built a lightweight, cost-effective distributed tracing platform for our automation ecosystem using ECS Fargate, S3, and the OpenTelemetry standard.
READ MORE →How we designed a flight booking system that operates honestly under uncertainty — without a commercial agreement with the airline.
READ MORE →Progress in a complex fulfillment system isn't measured by actions taken. It's measured by truths confirmed. Here's the mental model that changed how we think about execution.
READ MORE →A 50KB shell handler delivers production JSON endpoints 677% cheaper than Node.js + API Gateway. Here's how and when it makes sense.
READ MORE →From pure Bash to optimized runtime layers: how systematic experimentation led to the perfect architecture for shell-based Lambda functions
READ MORE →Real-world benchmarking reveals surprising Lambda performance insights: when container images beat ZIP packages and why raw TCP sockets halve cold start times
READ MORE →How to run your Lambda functions locally in an environment identical to AWS using Docker and the Lambda Runtime Interface Emulator
READ MORE →A reusable Terraform foundation for consistent tagging, environments, and shared context across modules.
READ MORE →Sometimes you just want to see what's happening without opening another browser tab.
READ MORE →How a simple browser automation project revealed the need for a direct API Gateway to SNS proxy module
READ MORE →Deep dive into Lambda runtime performance showing when shell's 20ms overhead becomes negligible and cold start performance dominates
READ MORE →How migrating a bespoke OpenSearch ingestion pipeline led to two reusable Terraform modules for event analytics
READ MORE →Learn how to set up cross-account OpenSearch snapshots using Terraform and CloudPosse modules for robust data migration and backup strategies.
READ MORE →How we solved the browser automation performance problem with intelligent tier routing and achieved 10x performance improvements
READ MORE →How a well-crafted Makefile transforms Lambda development from a collection of manual steps into a seamless, parameterized workflow
READ MORE →Building a production-ready serverless image processing pipeline using shell scripts, AWS Lambda, and S3 event triggers - achieving 87% memory efficiency and sub-200ms cold starts.
READ MORE →The story behind QM4IL - why we built our own email API when MailSlurp became too expensive for our booking bots
READ MORE →Real serverless performance comparison: shell scripts vs Node.js in AWS Lambda. 50% faster response times, 75% less memory, 90% faster cold starts.
READ MORE →How turning your router into an API unlocks voice-controlled networking
READ MORE →The foundational mechanics of turning local code into remote execution
READ MORE →Complete guide: bash script to production API with AWS Lambda. Authentication, monitoring, and scaling included - no frameworks required.
READ MORE →How I turned my router's web interface into a REST API using nothing but shell scripts and Lambda layers
READ MORE →How to choose the right level of complexity for your serverless functions
READ MORE →Why the most boring solution is often the most powerful
READ MORE →How choosing the 'wrong' tool gave me 2x performance and 90% less memory usage
READ MORE →The cloudless computing approach: shell-first infrastructure, composable tools, and local development that scales to production.
READ MORE →Building infrastructure like Lego blocks - each piece does one thing well
READ MORE →Pre-built Lambda layers with statically-linked binaries for shell-based functions
READ MORE →Docker container images for running shell scripts on AWS Lambda. Three optimized variants from 132MB to 417MB with multi-platform support.
READ MORE →Learn terraform module design patterns for reusable, composable infrastructure. Real examples from production systems.
READ MORE →5 minutes from idea to production API - removing friction between having an idea and seeing it work in production
READ MORE →Why treating cloud services like utilities changes everything
READ MORE →The full ql48 evolution story
READ MORE →How lambda-shell-runtime is 75% smaller than official runtimes
READ MORE →Complete guide to AWS Lambda cold start optimization using custom runtimes. Real benchmarks showing 90% improvement over standard runtimes.
READ MORE →Comparing serverless frameworks vs shell-first approach. Performance benchmarks, cost analysis, and developer experience comparison.
READ MORE →How working with black boxes teaches clean boundaries, and why chaos forces disciplined design
READ MORE →How ECS Task Protection enables zero-downtime deployments and prevents message loss
READ MORE →