I Stopped Caring About Hot Reload
Agentic development changed how much I care about hot reload. I care less about preserving every browser state and more about seeing the truth quickly.
mfyz
A digital creator: Fatih Yildiz's notes on software engineering, ai, digital design, product and project management
Latest posts
Building Tiny Data Notebooks With Markdown, SQLite, and CSVs
A small local notebook workflow for CSV reports: pull public data, load it into SQLite, write SQL inside Markdown, and generate a static HTML report with charts.
Cloudflare Absorbs VoidZero and Astro, and Becoming the Default Path for Agent Apps
Cloudflare absorbing Astro and VoidZero is not just a front-end tooling story. It is about owning the path from agent-written code to deployed app.
From Observability to Action: My DASH 2026 Notes
Two things stood out to me at Datadog DASH 2026: agentic automation is closing the loop, and agent observability is becoming a real operational discipline.
Durable Queue Workers With Just Postgres
A Postgres queue is enough for many small background jobs. Absurd gets interesting when a job needs workflow memory: checkpoints, retries, sleeps, events, and crash-safe resume.
Quick npm and pip Security Hardening Tweaks for Supply Chain Attacks
After recent supply-chain attacks, a practical npm and pip hardening pass: disable install scripts, delay fresh packages, require hashed Python installs, and keep exceptions explicit.
Quick-glancing CSVs in VS Code with Rainbow CSV and Data Preview
When plain CSV turns into visual soup, Rainbow CSV and Data Preview give VS Code a lightweight workflow for fast inspection without leaving the editor.
Oat CSS after Pico
Pico CSS is still great for clean semantic pages, but Oat CSS started making more sense once my interfaces needed more app-like UI primitives.
My Coolify Experience After a Year
Coolify gets surprisingly close to the smooth deployment experience of Vercel, but the upgrade churn and observability gaps kept me cautious.
Designing Scalable CSV Importers: What a Good Importer Should Do
A good CSV importer is not an upload form. It is a staged workflow that helps users inspect, fix, validate, and only then commit messy data.
Technical Blogging Is a Thinking Tool
The best reason to write technical blog posts is not reach or brand. It is that writing forces thought to become explicit, especially when the audience is smart enough to spot bluffing.
All You Need Is Markdown and JSON
Most personal tools, AI workflows, and lightweight apps do not need a real database yet. Markdown with frontmatter and plain JSON can take you much further than people think.
I Became Obsessed With Dependency-Free, Vanilla Apps
How asking AI agents to build with vanilla Node.js and single-file HTML became my default approach, and why the code quality surprised me.
I Tested Three Node.js Excel Libraries So You Don't Have To
ExcelJS, SheetJS, and xlsx-populate — only one correctly handled read/modify/write workflows without corrupting data validations, drawings, and styles.
Claude Code is like playing Minecraft
The progression from punching trees to fighting dragons. How building with Claude Code follows the same tier-based progression as Minecraft, from simple CLI usage to full agent orchestration.
Folding phones and an on-the-go workable setup for devs
After being an Apple fanboy forever, I switched to Galaxy Fold, then Pixel Fold 9. Foldables with Termux and a VPS turned my phone into a real dev workstation.
Build a URL Shortener with Cloudflare Workers and D1
A quick walkthrough of building a URL shortener on Cloudflare's edge, using Workers, D1 (SQLite), and Hono. Plus how to lock down the admin with Zero Trust.
Claude Code's Allowlist Has a Blind Spot
The permission system blocks && chaining but completely ignores command substitution. Here's what I found.
Why I Build My Own AI Tools Instead of Using MCPs
Instead of giving Claude wide-open MCP access, I build tightly scoped custom tools. Here's why custom scripts beat MCP servers for personal AI workflows.
Pico CSS: The Anti-Tailwind Framework I Actually Enjoy
Pico CSS is a minimalist CSS framework that styles semantic HTML elements by default. No build process, no utility class soup, just clean HTML that looks good.
Vibe Anywhere: Claude Code on the Go from My Phone (via SSH on a Cheap VPS)
How I set up a cheap VPS with Claude Code and SSH access to vibe code from my iPhone while picking up kids, in coffee shop lines, and odd places.
Vibe Coding with a Plan: Building a Currency Calculator PWA in a few hours
How I built a mobile-first currency converter using ASCII mockups and vibe coding. From detailed planning to working PWA in 48 hours.
The Power of plan.md: Why I Spend Hours Planning with AI Before Writing Code
How I spend hours building detailed plan.md files with AI agents before writing any code, and why this upfront investment saves time and headaches later.
Cursor's Composer1: Trading Smarts for Speed (and Why That Works)
Cursor released their own custom-trained coding model called Composer1. It's 4x faster than comparable models and surprisingly capable. Here's why it drew me back to the IDE.
Storing large web app state in URL using pako
How to store and share complex application state in URLs using pako compression, discovered from Mermaid Live Editor's approach to making diagrams shareable.
Stupid Simple Setup to Run AI Locally on Any Computer
Ollama + Gemma 2B runs capable AI locally on any computer. Free, offline, private - handles summaries and automation without cloud APIs or heavy resources.
snarkdown: The 1KB Markdown Renderer That Does Just Enough
Marked is 50KB. markdown-it is 100KB. snarkdown is 1KB and handles 90% of markdown use cases.
uvu + Sinon: Fast, Lightweight Testing That Actually Feels Good
Jest is slow. Vitest is heavy. uvu is a 5KB test runner that runs 205 tests in 190ms. Here's why I switched and built a custom reporter.
React's Best Parts in 5KB: Preact + HTM, No Build Tools Needed
Modern React development means webpack, babel, and megabytes of dependencies. Preact + HTM gives you the same DX in 5KB from a CDN. No build step needed.
dprint: The Rust-Based Code Formatter That's 10-100x Faster Than Prettier
Prettier is slow and bloated. dprint is a Rust-based alternative that's 10-100x faster with zero npm dependencies. Here's why I switched.
I Built an OSS Newsletter Digester That Uses AI to Send Me Daily Slack Summaries
Too many newsletters and blog emails? I built a self-hosted tool that monitors them all, uses AI to generate smart summaries, and sends digests straight to Slack.
Sandboxing AI Coding Agents: Network Firewall + Restricted Shell Environment
Running Claude Code or other AI agents with unrestricted network access? Here's how I built a secure, isolated dev container with iptables firewall to control exactly what they can reach.
Claude Code on Loop: The Ultimate YOLO Mode
What happens when you let Claude Code run in a loop with minimal instructions? An experimental approach to autonomous AI coding that's equal parts fascinating and terrifying.
Poor Man's ngrok: Build Your Own Tunnel with SSH
Need to expose localhost for webhook testing but don't want random URLs or subscriptions? Here's how I use SSH tunneling and NGINX for a stable, free ngrok alternative.
Why Claude Code is my favorite way to interact with LLMs
Claude Code became my primary LLM interface thanks to its markdown commands, hooks system, and shell-based architecture that opens unlimited possibilities.
How Markdown-Based Blogging Changed How Much I Write
The fluidity of markdown transformed my writing frequency, from complex WordPress workflows to seamless content creation across devices with AI assistance.
Post-Deployment Tests: Your Safety Net After the Code Ships
Why post-deployment testing matters and how to implement it with GitHub Actions and Playwright. Real examples of testing web pages and API health checks.
What is CDN stacking, how you may be doing it without knowing it, and why it's a bad idea?
CDN stacking increases latency and explode operational complexity
Smart client-side rendered Mermaid Charts on Astro Blogs
Smart client-side Mermaid diagram rendering that replaces code blocks with interactive charts, includes custom styling options and graceful fallbacks.
My Notion GTD and Prioritization Framework + Template
A practical GTD and prioritization framework built in Notion that helps stay focused, organize tasks by projects, and make better decisions about what to work on next.
Why People Are Moving from Next.js
Exploring the growing trend of developers and companies migrating away from Next.js, the reasons behind this movement, and where they're heading instead.
Generate beautiful og images to your blog posts in astro using satori
Learn how to automatically generate stunning Open Graph images for your Astro blog posts using Satori and @resvg/resvg-js with practical examples and code snippets.
You May Not Need React
Exploring when React becomes overkill and rediscovering the power of simpler web technologies for content-driven websites and applications.
Coolest WASM Superpowers in Your Browser
Exploring the coolest WebAssembly use cases that bring desktop-level performance to web browsers - from running Python to full SQL databases.
Taming Claude Code
How Claude Code revolutionized CLI-based development and practical tips for mastering this powerful AI coding assistant.
Crafting Error Messages That Actually Help Users
Methods for creating error messages that effectively guide users and prevent frustration in digital products are explored.
WordPress to MDX (Astro) migration script
A Node.js script for exporting WordPress blog posts to Astro MDX format is detailed, covering frontmatter creation and content transformation.
Vibe-coding a Headless News Website with Arc XP's View API in 2 hours
A vibe-coding session demonstrating the construction of a news website using Arc XP's View API, Astro, and AI-powered tools is presented.
mfyz.com is Now Open Source & Introducing Comments!
The Astro codebase for mfyz.com is now open source, and a new Giscus-powered reaction and commenting system has been introduced for blog posts.
My take on Headless CMSes - When and Why
A practical examination of headless CMS platforms is provided, outlining when their use is most beneficial and why.