Principles for AI-native engineering
How I use context, plans, worktrees, review, testing, and automation with coding agents.
Brian Sigafoos
Recent content on Brian Sigafoos
Latest posts
Harness engineering: How small pods move faster
Small pods can move faster without sacrificing quality by giving coding agents clear context, boundaries, tools, and feedback loops.
Auto-format all changed files with one command, for your AI agent
Stop telling your AI agents how to auto-format your code. Give them one command that auto-formats all files correctly. Introducing fast-format-x ( ffx ).
How to AI: Stop throwing away prompts. Start managing context.
Manage context with plan files to give your AI agents memory. Use an AGENTS.md file and a gather-files script for deep thinking critique.
FastAPI for ML inference
How to use FastAPI for machine learning inference, Dockerized and deployed using Kubernetes
ML papers
A collection of interesting and important machine learning papers
ML on a Mac
Steps for Machine Learning on Apple Silicon M1/M2 chips, with Stable Diffusion
ML snippets
Snippets of code for getting started with machine learning, using PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy, and Kaggle
Machine Learning quick start
Learn how to quickly get started using fastai, Hugging Face, and Gradio to deploy a demo ML app
Learn Neural Networks with Andrej Karpathy
Notes from Karpathy’s machine learning lectures - Neural Networks: Zero to Hero
Debug scientifically
Try a more “scientific” process to solving bugs and reducing Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)
Design Docs for software architecture review
An intro to using Design Docs aka RFCs to help teams build better software and share knowledge
Code Review best practices
Follow clear guidelines for code review to help improve code quality and products
Dark mode with CSS variables and Stimulus
How to add Dark Mode using CSS variables and Stimulus, plus a color palette picker
Software Engineering Toolbox
A collection of posts for software engineers and engineering leaders
Embeddable JavaScript widgets
How to create a GitHub gist-like embeddable widget using Rails
Automate dependency updates
Use automated tools like GitHub’s Dependabot and Actions to automate dependency updates
“Problems are good. We solve problems”
An optimistic, action-oriented attitude for software engineering
The Beyoncé Rule
“If you like it, then you shoulda put a CI test on it.”
Rails on Kubernetes
Build a CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions to Kubernetes for a Ruby on Rails app
Prevent pushing to main branch
Use a .git hooks script to prevent accidentally pushing to main branch
A modern app tech stack, built for speed
Small teams can iterate more quickly using Rails with ViewComponent + Tailwind CSS + Hotwire. Build faster with no custom CSS and limited JS.
Principles for engineers
Focus on delivering value to customers, communicate proactively, encourage critique, take initiative, debug scientifically, and practice habits.
Auto-format and lint everything
Build faster with automated formatting, linting, and vulnerability scanning
“Win and help win”
A guiding philosophy for tech that is ambitious, positive-sum, and collective.
Baby vocab in English, French, and Arabic
Vocabulary lists of fruit, vegetables, animals, and more.
Favorite Ruby gems
A list of my favorite Ruby gems, mostly for Rails projects.
US county ratings
A spreadsheet to rate US counties objectively across many factors from “Best Places To Live” to climate change and earthquake risks.
API design patterns
Key principles and learnings for API design
Language syntax review
Quick review of basic syntax for Go, JavaScript, Ruby, Rails, and SQL
Parallel tests on CircleCI
Speed up builds by running Rails tests in parallel and learn more about CircleCI 2.1 features.
Reading list
My favorite books and what I’m currently reading.
Practicing Scrum
Agile training notes from a Scrum workshop by Ron Lichty.
Learning Go
Some resources I’ve found incredibly useful in learning Go, aka Golang.
Postgres tips
A quick reference for working with PostgreSQL databases.
Metaprogramming in Ruby
Some patterns, approaches, and “spells” for metaprogramming in Ruby.
Ruby code gists for Rails
Snippets of Ruby code for faster Rails setup, development, and testing.
SaaS pricing using PPP rates
How we made Playpass pricing more fair in all countries by using country purchasing power parity (PPP) rates instead of currency exchange rates.
Nature meditation videos
Relaxing videos for meditating or reconnecting with nature.
Dubai startup resources
Crash course on Dubai’s startup ecosystem from co-working spaces to accelerators and a list of Dubai startups.
Cooking recipes
Delicious cooking recipes that I come back to again and again
Poetry
Poems for the love of my life
Time Capsule
My favorite books, podcasts, apps, and more from 2013, 2020, and 2023
Setting up Jekyll with Bootstrap, GitHub Pages and a custom domain
Here’s how I set up this blog with Jekyll, Bootstrap, GitHub Pages. Tip - clone a working Jekyll site!
CrossFit WOD log book
Template of a Google Sheet spreadsheet to track CrossFit WODs and PBs.
Learning with MOOCs
Mass Open Online Courses are an amazing way to learn online, for free. Here’s a list of some great free courses.
Mapping relatives from Europe to America
A 2012 project to find out where my family came from in Germany, England, and Scotland and where they ended up in the US
Travel guide for Dubai guests
My Airbnb guidebook of travel tips for visitors to Dubai.
Arabic to English sports phrasebook
Sports phrases in 6 languages - English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian and Tagalog.
Verbs in Arabic, English, and French
250+ colloquial Palestinian Arabic verbs with English and French translations.