AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The Claude Review Gate Skill File Every CTO Needs
A practical skill file for teams where Claude writes most of the code and humans own the review gate.
4 min read
Engineering Leadership & Technical Strategy
Insights on platform modernization, CI/CD, team scaling, technical architecture, and building products that last.
Featured
Latest insights and updates
All Articles
147 articles on engineering leadership and technical strategy
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
The AI Model Swap Skill File Every CTO Needs
A CTO skill file for swapping AI models without breaking support, product, ops, or engineering workflows.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
The AI Coding Prompt Injection Skill File Every CTO Needs
A practical skill file for AI coding agents that keeps untrusted text, tool access, and human approval under control.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
The AI Coding Guardrail Skill File Every CTO Needs
A practical skill file for AI coding guardrails with access boundaries, review triggers, and rollback rules for CTOs and engineering leaders.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
The AI Coding Policy Skill File Every CTO Needs
A practical skill file for AI coding policy with access boundaries, spend caps, and rollback rules for CTOs and engineering leaders.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Vibe Coding's Hidden CTO Tax Is Review and Rollback
A review-and-rollback skill file that turns vibe coding into a repeatable workflow for engineering, product, support, and ops.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Production AI Teams Need a Context Packet Skill File
A context packet skill file for AI agents, so engineering, product, support, and ops get cleaner handoffs, sharper outputs, and fewer surprises.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Agents Need an Audit Trail Skill File
A practical governance skill file for CTOs running AI agents in production, with approvals, ownership, and audit logs.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipCursorClaudeCode
Cursor vs Claude Code Need a Routing Skill File
A routing skill file for choosing Cursor vs Claude Code and keeping AI work reviewable across engineering, support, product, and ops.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The AI Boundary Map Skill File Every CTO Needs Before Rolling Out Agents
A CTO guide for defining what AI can read, draft, edit, and act on across engineering, support, product, and ops.
5 min read
Tools & StackAIAutomation
The Cursor + Claude Code Skill File Stack That Keeps AI Coding Organized
A CTO workflow for routing coding work through Cursor, Claude Code, and a small skill file stack that keeps AI output reviewable.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAICodeReview
The Pull Request Proof Bundle Skill File Every CTO Needs Before Production
A practical skill file for AI code review with risk classes, proof bundles, and stop conditions for engineering, product, support, and ops.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAICodeReview
The AI Code Review Trust Skill File Every CTO Needs Before Production
A practical skill file for AI code review with risk classes, proof bundles, and trust gates for engineering, product, support, and ops.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAISecurity
The AI IDE Security Skill File Every CTO Needs Before Cursor or Claude Code
A practical guardrail file for teams adopting AI IDEs, with rules for approvals, secrets, and audit logs.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipCursorClaudeCode
Cursor vs Claude Code Need a Workflow Split Skill File
A practical skill file for routing AI work between Cursor and Claude Code so engineering, product, support, and ops all move faster.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Deterministic Agent Harnesses Are the New CTO Skill File
A practical skill file for wrapping AI agents in harnesses, logs, and approval gates before they touch code, support, or ops.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Coding Failure Modes Need a Review Loop Skill File
A practical review loop skill file for engineering leaders using AI across code, support, product, and ops without shipping blind.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipCursorAI
Cursor Is Turning Into a Platform, So CTOs Need a Rollout Skill File
A practical CTO rollout skill file for treating Cursor and other AI coding tools like infrastructure across engineering, product, support, and ops.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipCursorAI
Cursor Security Flaws Show Why the Review Layer Matters More Than Prompt Speed
A five-step review layer skill file for teams that use AI to draft code, docs, and ops work without shipping blind.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Vibe Coding Needs a Production Handoff Skill File
A practical skill file for turning AI drafts into reviewable production work across engineering, product, support, and ops.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Cursor Mobile Exposed the Agent Oversight Skill File
A CTO framework for scoping, reviewing, and proving AI work with a skill file that keeps engineering, product, and ops aligned.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Coding Needs a Senior Review Gate Skill File
A practical CTO framework for keeping AI speed useful with scoped review, proof, and a skill file the whole org can use.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Coding Agents Need a Verification Skill File
A practical CTO framework for scoping AI coding work, verifying changes, and keeping agents useful across engineering, product, support, and ops.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
GitHub Copilot Usage-Based Billing Needs Token Governance
A CTO playbook for budget-aware AI coding, premium token rules, and a skill file that keeps AI useful across the whole org.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Production AI Agents Need a Governance Skill File
A CTO guide to agent evals, approval gates, and audit trails that keep AI useful across engineering, support, product, and ops.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Claude Code Task Execution Needs a Skill File
A CTO guide for turning long Claude Code runs into bounded tasks, reviewable traces, and safer handoffs across the org.
5 min read
AILinkedInData Visualization
Build Your Own NetworkExplorer: Turn Your LinkedIn Export Into a Stunning Interactive Page
A copy-paste mega-prompt that turns your raw LinkedIn data export into a full-screen, interactive NetworkExplorer page — dark luxury gold design, a shareable Network Score, animated charts, and a one-click brag card built to go viral.
9 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Parallel AI Agents Turn Specs Into the Real CTO Skill
A CTO guide for turning AI agent work into reviewable specs, parallel slices, and safer execution across the org.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Coding Agent Observability Starts With a Supervision Skill File
A practical supervision skill file for keeping Claude Code or Cursor inside scope while proving every agent run is safe.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Claude Code Guardrails Start With a Supervision Skill File
A CTO skill file for forcing verification, scope limits, and review gates around Claude Code or any AI coding agent.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Your AI Team Needs a Run Log, Not Better Prompts
A CTO skill file for capturing intent, evidence, and next steps so AI work stays reviewable across the whole business.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
If an AI Agent Can Spend Money, It Needs a Budget Control Plane
A CTO skill file for setting spend caps, approval gates, observability, and kill switches around AI agents before they touch production.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
AI Workflow Redesign Beats Tool Adoption
A CTO framework for mapping AI into support, product, ops, sales, and engineering so teams get faster without adding more handoffs.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Guarded Frontier Models Need a Release Checklist
A CTO checklist for releasing frontier models with fallback tests, rollback paths, and review gates across support, ops, product, sales, and engineering.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
Apple's Gemini Bet Proves CTOs Need an AI Vendor Flexibility Scorecard
A CTO guide for keeping AI workflows portable with primary and fallback models, a swap rule, and a scorecard that works across support, product, ops, sales, and engineering.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIAutomation
The Token Budget Contract Is How CTOs Stop AI Spend Sprawl
A CTO guide for putting usage-based AI tools behind clear budgets, owners, and exception rules across engineering, product, support, ops, and sales.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Lockdown Mode Is a Workflow Isolation Contract
A practical CTO guide for separating public, internal, and locked AI workflows before prompt injection turns context into data exposure.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Agent Reliability Needs an Operating Contract
A practical CTO operating contract for making AI agents observable, bounded, reversible, and safe enough for production work.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Coding Context Continuity Needs a Playbook
A practical CTO playbook for keeping AI coding context portable across Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, and human reviewers.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Claude Code Dynamic Workflows Need an Agent Router
A practical CTO guide for routing large AI coding workflows by scope, risk, budget, and review evidence.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Agentic Coding Needs a Review Bottleneck Playbook
A practical CTO playbook for keeping AI coding agents useful without turning senior engineers into full-time diff auditors.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Coding Agents Need a Fake Success Verification Harness
A practical CTO guide for stopping AI coding agents from masking broken integrations with fake fallbacks, swallowed errors, and unsupported success claims.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Add-Ons Need Permission Boundaries Before They Touch Business Data
A practical CTO checklist for governing AI add-ons in spreadsheets, CRM, support tools, and internal SaaS before prompt injection turns convenience into data exposure.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Coding Token Budgets Need a Governance Checklist
A practical CTO checklist for routing AI coding work by budget, model tier, permissions, and review evidence instead of letting token spend drift.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Coding Power Users Run Agent Systems, Not Prompts
A practical CTO skill file for turning AI coding tools into supervised agent workflows with scope, tests, review, and handoff rules.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Hidden Fallbacks Are the AI Code Review Failure Mode
A practical CTO review contract for catching AI-generated fallbacks before they hide broken integrations, bad data, or failed workflows.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Revenue Per Employee Is the AI Adoption Scorecard
A practical CTO scorecard for measuring whether AI adoption is increasing real output across engineering, support, product, ops, and sales.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAISecurity
AI Coding Needs a Secret Leak Review Contract
A practical CTO contract for preventing AI-assisted commits from shipping hardcoded credentials, unsafe defaults, and unreviewed secret exposure.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Remediation Needs an Evidence Contract
A practical CTO framework for making AI-generated security fixes prove what changed, what passed, and what still needs human review.
5 min read
Tools & StackAIAutomation
Local LLM Tool Access Needs a Permission Checklist
A practical CTO checklist for giving local LLM agents shell, file, browser, and workflow access without creating an ungoverned automation surface.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI-Speed Vulnerability Discovery Needs a Patch Operating Model
A practical CTO framework for turning AI-generated vulnerability findings into owned, tested, deployable security fixes.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The Runtime Governance Layer Production AI Agents Need
A practical control layer for CTOs moving AI agents from pilots into production workflows across engineering, support, product, and ops.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The AI Agent Source-Code Governance Checklist CTOs Need
A practical CTO checklist for adopting AI coding agents without leaking source code, secrets, customer data, or ownership.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The AI Tool Vendor-Neutrality Scorecard Every CTO Needs
A practical scorecard for choosing AI coding tools without locking engineering, product, support, and ops into one vendor bet.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Strategy Needs an Operating Model, Not Demo Energy
A practical CTO operating model for turning AI excitement into owned workflows, human checkpoints, and measurable business leverage.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Claude Code Large Codebases Need Context Contracts
A practical CTO skill file for helping Claude Code work inside large repositories without guessing product intent or creating review debt.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Codex Mobile Needs Agent Delegation Rules
A practical CTO checklist for letting mobile AI agents move engineering work forward without creating review chaos.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Model Fast Mode Needs Cost Routing Rules
A practical CTO skill file for deciding when premium AI model speed is worth the cost across engineering, product, support, and ops.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Cursor in Microsoft Teams Needs Delegation Rules
A practical CTO skill file for letting teams delegate work to chat-based coding agents without creating uncontrolled agent sprawl.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Agents Need a Maintenance Cost Scorecard
A practical CTO framework for measuring AI coding agents by ownership cost, review debt, and future change speed instead of ticket velocity.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Claude Code Higher Limits Need Supervision Rules
A practical CTO guide for turning longer Claude Code runs into supervised, auditable engineering work instead of larger unreviewed diffs.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Agents Need Reviewable PR Slices
A practical CTO guide for turning Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, and other AI coding agents into small, auditable pull requests.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Agents Need Control Flow, Not Longer Prompts
A practical CTO guide for turning AI agent workflows into explicit state machines with checkpoints, risk gates, and proof of completion.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Agent Context Usage Is Becoming an Engineering KPI
A practical CTO guide for measuring agent context waste across rules, skills, MCP tools, and subagents before AI coding costs turn into chaos.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI CI Agents: The Operating Model Before They Touch GitHub
A practical CTO guide for letting AI agents monitor CI, investigate failures, and open pull requests without creating permission sprawl or review debt.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Engineering Cost Control Scorecard: Stop Buying Tools Without an Operating Model
A practical CTO scorecard for controlling AI coding tool spend, model usage, agent permissions, and cross-team AI adoption without slowing teams down.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Cursor Security Review Agents: The CTO Playbook for Always-On Security
Cursor Security Review makes security agents part of the engineering workflow. Here is the CTO playbook for rolling them out without creating noise, blind trust, or hidden risk.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
From Vibe Coding to Agentic Engineering: What the Rebrand Actually Changes
Andrei Karpathy killed a term last week. 'Vibe coding' is a transition word, he said — the real name for what we're doing is 'agentic engineering.' He's right. And most teams aren't ready for what that name change demands.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Agent Safety Checklist: Preventing the 9-Second Database Deletion Disaster
A production database and seven days of backups deleted in nine seconds by an AI agent. Here's the safety checklist every CTO needs before giving autonomous agents production access.
6 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The AI Agent Permission Ladder Every CTO Needs Before Production Access
A practical permission ladder CTOs can use before AI coding agents touch production systems, customer data, or infrastructure.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAICursorAI
Your AI Coding Tool Just Became a Team Player. Here's What Changes.
Cursor 3.2's /multitask feature unlocked parallel AI agents. Here is how the coordination calculus changes for engineering leaders and what the new bottleneck will be.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIVibeCoding
Vibe Coding Gets You to 1. Here's What Gets You to 100.
Going from 0 to 1 with AI has never been easier. Going from 1 to 100 has never been harder. Here is the architectural pre-flight checklist that prevents vibe debt before the first prompt.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAICursor
The Harness Matters More Than the Model: Claude Code vs Cursor's 15-Point Gap
New benchmark data shows Claude Opus 4 scoring 73% in Cursor vs 58% in Claude Code. Same model, different harness. Here is the skill file layer that closes the gap on your own codebase.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIGitHubCopilot
GitHub Copilot Started Training on Your Code Today. Here Is the Policy Template Your Team Needs.
As of April 24, 2026, GitHub Copilot opted in Free, Pro, and Pro+ users to AI training on their code. Most engineering teams found out on Twitter. Here is the audit checklist and policy template to close the governance gap.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAISecurity
Vibe Coding Is a Security Disaster: Here's the Skill File That Fixes It
Lovable and Vercel both had security incidents in one week. Vibe coding platforms optimize for speed and treat security as a documentation problem. Here is the Cursor skill file that adds a real review layer to every AI code session.
4 min read
Tools & StackAICursor
Cursor at $50B: What AI-Native Engineering Teams Are Actually Doing Differently
Cursor just raised at a $50B valuation with $2B ARR. The market is not betting on a code editor — it is betting that AI-native engineering is now the baseline. Here is what the winning teams are actually doing.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
The AI Coding Trust Gap: Why 84% of Devs Use It But Only 29% Trust What Ships
New data shows 84% of developers use AI coding tools, but only 29% trust the output in production. The gap is not a tools problem — it is a code review culture problem.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAgents
Running Parallel AI Agents in Cursor 3: The Engineering Leader's Playbook
Stop coding one line at a time. Learn how to decompose work into parallel agent tasks, manage multiple AI agents simultaneously, and review output like a senior engineer.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIBudget
Uber Burned Its 2026 AI Budget by April. Here's the Governance Framework That Prevents It.
Uber burned through its entire 2026 AI budget in four months. Here's the governance framework that keeps AI tools sustainable.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
Vibe Coding Is a 10% Solution Being Sold as 100%
Chamath is right: 90% of code is maintenance. AI vibe coding solves 10%. Here is what actually works.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIClaudeCode
Claude Code Routines: Your Dev Pipeline Just Got a Cloud Scheduler
Claude Code Routines lets you define AI agent prompts triggered by schedule, API call, or GitHub event — running on Anthropic-managed cloud infrastructure while your laptop is closed.
4 min read
AI & AutomationAIMultiAgent
Multi-Agent AI Is a Distributed Systems Problem. Your Team Doesn't Know It Yet.
Chaining AI agents together is not a prompt engineering problem. It is a distributed systems problem — and the same rules apply: idempotency, failure isolation, consistency models, and tracing.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIClaudeCode
Anthropic's Engineers Are Now Architects. Here's the Transition Playbook.
Anthropic announced the majority of their code is now written by Claude Code. Their engineers are not writers anymore — they are architects. Here is the three-step playbook for making the same shift.
4 min read
Engineering LeadershipAIEngineeringLeadership
Should You Fire Engineers Who Refuse to Use AI? You're Asking the Wrong Question.
60% of executives plan to lay off employees who won't use AI. 48% call AI adoption a massive disappointment. Those two stats are not unrelated.
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
AI Writes 46% of Code Now. Only 29% of Devs Trust What Ships.
Cursor 3 just launched agent fleets. Adoption is at an all-time high. So why does nearly three-quarters of the dev world not trust what AI actually ships to production?
5 min read
AI & AutomationAIAutomation
How to Get Your Company AI-Pilled: A Fractional CTO's Adoption Playbook
A practical framework for rolling out AI across an entire org — not just the eng team. Includes the exact adoption sequencing I use across multiple companies.
5 min read
Engineering LeadershipEngineering ReportingExecutive Dashboards
I Stopped Writing Weekly Engineering Status Updates by Hand
The reporting-side system I use to pull GitHub, Asana, Linear, Jira, Slack, and email activity into project-level decks plus an executive rollup every week.
11 min read
Engineering LeadershipAsana AutomationCursor Skills
Cursor Skills That Run Bugfix Operations End-to-End
A practical breakdown of the Cursor skills I use to automate bugfix execution: sourcing tickets, shipping scoped fixes, writing PR context, and syncing review state.
10 min read
LeadershipLeadershipManagement
Leadership OS: Understand Your Operating System for Better Leadership
Discover your leadership operating system—how you make decisions, communicate, handle conflict, and work with teams. Understand your style to lead more effectively.
6 min read
SecuritySecurityCompliance
Security & Compliance Readiness: SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA Assessment
Are you ready for SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA, or other compliance requirements? Get a readiness assessment with gap analysis and action plan.
6 min read
LeadershipHiringTeam Building
Team Scaling Decision: When to Hire Full-Time, Use Contractors, or Outsource
When should you hire full-time, use contractors, outsource, or wait? Get clarity on the right team scaling strategy for your situation.
6 min read
LeadershipVendor SelectionProcurement
Vendor Selection Framework: Too Many Vendors, Too Little Time
Too many vendors, too little time. Get a structured framework to evaluate and choose the right vendor for your needs. Save time and reduce risk.
6 min read
EngineeringTechnical DebtCode Quality
Technical Debt Assessment: Know Your Debt Level Before It Becomes a Crisis
Assess your technical debt level and get a prioritized plan to pay it down before it becomes a crisis. Understand the true cost of your codebase.
6 min read
AIAIArtificial Intelligence
AI Adoption Decision Framework: Build, Buy, Wait, or Hybrid?
Should you build AI features internally, buy AI tools, wait and observe, or take a hybrid approach? Get an executive-level assessment for your AI strategy.
7 min read
LeadershipEOSGoal Setting
EOS Goal Cascade Analyzer: Align Company Goals with Departmental Execution
Cascade company goals into departmental rocks (top-down) or analyze if existing rocks align with your company goal (bottom-up). Based on EOS framework.
5 min read
LeadershipStakeholder ManagementDecision Making
Stakeholder Alignment Checker: Identify Stakeholders Before Decisions Fail
Identify all stakeholders before making decisions. Get a stakeholder map with recommended consultation approaches to avoid execution failures.
5 min read
LeadershipHiringInterviewing
Interview Signal Analyzer: Hire Real Talent, Not AI-Generated Answers
Generate adaptive interview questions designed to surface genuine competence, judgment, and experience. Analyzes human signal, not AI usage.
6 min read
EngineeringCMSContent Management
CMS Decision Maker: Content-as-Code vs Traditional CMS in the AI Era
With AI coding agents, the cost of CMS abstraction has never been higher. Determine if you need a CMS or if content-as-code is the better path for your team.
6 min read
LeadershipCTOLeadership
Do We Need a Full-Time CTO? The Executive Decision Framework
Full-time CTO, fractional CTO, or senior IC? This framework helps founders and CEOs make the right technical leadership decision for their company stage and needs.
6 min read
ProductMVPProduct Management
Overbuild to MVP Reducer: How to Rescue Your Launch When You've Gone Too Far
Already overbuilt? Get a step-by-step plan to trim your scope down to a focused MVP that delivers value faster. Stop the bleeding and get to market.
6 min read
ProductMVPProduct Management
MVP vs Overbuild Checker: Stop Feature Creep Before It Kills Your Launch
Are you building an MVP or overengineering? This tool helps product teams identify scope creep early and focus on features that actually matter for launch.
5 min read
LeadershipCTOEngineering
Build vs Buy: The Executive Decision Framework That Saves Millions
Stop guessing whether to build or buy. This proven framework helps CTOs and executives make data-driven decisions that save time, money, and engineering resources.
5 min read
LeadershipAIEngineering Leadership
Engineering Leadership in the Age of AI
How AI is reshaping modern engineering leadership, accelerating decision-making, and redefining how teams design, build, and ship software.
4 min read
ProductAIDeveloper Tools
Vibe Coded Software: What It Really Means
A grounded explanation of vibe-coded software—how modern AI-native tools enable fast, fluid, high-quality software creation without requiring deep focus or hours of manual coding.
5 min read
LeadershipFractional CTOConsulting
Fractional CTO vs. Consultant: What's the Difference?
A clear, practical breakdown of how fractional CTOs differ from consultants—and how founders can choose the right model for their stage and risk profile.
4 min read
LeadershipEngineering TeamsVelocity
Building High-Output Engineering Teams
A practical, modern framework for building engineering teams that consistently deliver high velocity, high quality, and low drama.
4 min read
AIAIEngineering
AI-Assisted Software Development Workflows
A breakdown of modern AI-augmented engineering workflows—and how teams can ship faster with less cognitive load while maintaining quality.
4 min read
LeadershipScaling TeamsLeadership
Scaling an Engineering Org Fast—Without Breaking It
A blueprint for scaling an engineering team quickly while preserving culture, velocity, decision-making quality, and product stability.
4 min read
LeadershipArchitectureLeadership
The Art of Technical Decision-Making
A practical decision-making framework for engineering leaders who need to move fast without creating long-term architectural pain.
4 min read
EngineeringTech DebtEngineering Process
Why Most Tech Debt Isn’t Real Tech Debt
A perspective shift on tech debt—why teams misuse the term and how to distinguish real strategic debt from simple code dissatisfaction.
4 min read
Org DesignTeam StructureLeadership
The Case for Small Engineering Teams
Why small engineering teams consistently outperform large ones—and how to structure them for clarity, ownership, and execution.
3 min read
CultureEngineering CultureLeadership
What Good Engineering Culture Actually Means
A practical definition of engineering culture—and the behaviors that separate healthy, high-output teams from dysfunctional ones.
4 min read
LinuxLinuxWordPress
Updated: How to find and clean up infected WordPress Files over SSH
Several years ago, I wrote what was and still is one of my most popular blogs to date. It's an article where I provided some tips and tricks on finding infected WordPress files on your server.
2 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentMagento
How to find out what user used what coupon code in Magento
Easily export a list of all orders and their associated coupon usage for Magento orders using SQL
2 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentWordPress
Use wpcli and Cron to Unpublish WordPress page
Use the wpcli and system cron to automatically unpublish a blog article or page at a specific time.
2 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentLinux
Easily monitor uptime on WHM & cPanel Server with UptimeRobot
It's all about UptimeRobot When managing multiple WHM servers with hundreds of cPanel accounts, sometimes you need a quick and easy way to monitor your sites uptime.
2 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentWordPress
WordPress Bash Scripts
I've been doing a lot of bash scripting with WordPress, especially with WP CLI. Here are some snippets I found useful.
4 min read
MagentoMagentoMySQL
How to Migrate Magento Customers and Orders
When launching an existing Magento store, one of the last things you will need to do is migrate all of the current Customers and Orders from the production site, into development, prior to actually going live.
1 min read
LinuxLinuxApache
Tuning and benchmarking Apache and MySQL
Have you ever found yourself needing to speed up apache or mysql? Here's a quick writeup on some very useful tools when you first setup Apache and MySQL.
3 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentWordPress
Remove Visual Composer Shortcodes from WordPress Excerpt
Learn how to remove Visual Composer from your WordPress post excerpts using easy to drop in php functions which can be called anywhere in your site
2 min read
PHPPHPWordPress
Create options pages in WordPress with Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)
I searched low and high to figure out how to create options pages in the updated version of Advanced Custom Fields (version 5 of ACF)
1 min read
Gravity FormsGravity FormsWordPress
Detect and Prevent Malware in Gravity Forms File Upload with PHP ClamAV
One of the best and most widely used form building plugins for WordPress is gravity forms. If you've ever needed to allow users to upload files to your site, but you want to make sure those files are not harmful, the following tutorial will help you with just that!
2 min read
UncategorizedUncategorizedLaravel
Laravel Force HTTPS
Using App::before You might be able to take advantage of the App::before() block in the app/filters.php file.
1 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentLinux
Optimize all images within current directory
Easily optimize all PNG and JPG images within your website for Google Page Speed improvements.
1 min read
jQueryjQueryWordPress
How to load jQuery in WordPress theme
When building out a custom theme, one of the first things most developers will need in their set of tools and resources to write efficient code will be jQuery.
1 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentLinux
Easily deploy a templated robots.txt file to all accounts within your WHM / cPanel server.
Easily deploy a templated robots.txt file to all accounts within your WHM / cPanel server.
1 min read
DevelopmentDevelopmentPHP
Use PHP to pull Users Instagram Feed
Here's a great snippet for pulling a users Instagram Feed and doing whatever you want with it.
1 min read
PHPPHPWordPress
How to find and clean up infected WordPress Files over SSH
If you've ever found yourself with a hacked WordPress site, one of the hardest things to do is scan your entire server and find all of the infected files.
3 min read
PHPPHPWordPress
Disable All Mail for WordPress
I did this simple hack on a private WordPress Multisite blog, to stop it sending me emails every time I created a new blog.
1 min read
PHPPHPWordPress
Get the latest Post ID in WordPress
Here's a neat little trick that will get you the latest post ID from WordPress.
1 min read
UncategorizedWHMcPanel
Force Non Legacy Backup to Start (WHM/cPanel)
If you have setup a Backup to run in WHM -> Backup -> Backup Configuration and would like to force it to run immediately instead of waiting for the backup schedule you can do so through SSH.
1 min read
BootstrapBlack FridayDeals
Black Friday Deals for Web Developers
Here's a compiled list for a lot of GREAT deals for Black Friday. If you're a developer, or even a designer there's definitely something here for you!
7 min read
DevelopmentEmailGmail
Prevent gmail from breaking width of email template.
Recently while coding out an e-blast I came across an issue where the layout rendered perfectly on desktop and mobile devices ( it was a responsive theme ) with any email client, except gmail on both iOS as well as Android.
1 min read
PHPPHPJavaScript
Find all files touched within the last 2 weeks
If you've ever had to deal with a hack before, you know how frustrating it can be figuring out what files were infected. This is a great method for finding all the PHP and JavaScript files that have been touched within the last couple of weeks.
1 min read
MagentoMagentoSecurity
Get a list of all installed Magento Patches
Determine which magento patches have been installed on your site.
2 min read
DevelopmentSublime TextRegex
FIND TEXT BETWEEN TAGS – SUBLIME TEXT
Often you may want to change all text between certain tags within Sublime Text, remove all types of certain tags, or change all of one HTML Tag to another. This is very often the case in XML documents or if you are removing all comments.
1 min read
DevelopmentWordPressWPML
Automatically check WPML custom field checkboxes
Today I faced a pretty daunting task, I needed to check around 2,600 rows of checkboxes across 4 different sites, each that had 3 different options.
2 min read
DevelopmentLinuxFSCK
How to skip fsck after reboot
With the recent Ghost Vulnerability out in the wild, I was tasked with patching our development servers and needed to reboot them in the middle of the night.
2 min read
DevelopmentWordPressPHP
Pull YouTube Description into WordPress Content
You might find yourself needing to dynamically update your WordPress post content with the description of a YouTube video.
2 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
Dynamically Add Parameters to the end of all wp_nav_menu()
I was working on a client who's site I was working on where I was required to capture, and hold onto an affiliate tracking variable and value throughout the entire session of a user while browsing their website.
1 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
Set WordPress image quality to high
Did you know that by default, WordPress smushes your JPG images down to 60% quality after your upload them?
1 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
How to create custom auto generated image sizes in WordPress
If you've ever needed to create custom image sizes for your WordPress installation, this function will come in very handy.
2 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
Remove the ability to edit theme in WordPress admin
When developing sites for clients, sometimes you want the ability to prevent the end user from being able to edit/access the theme source code from the admin panel "Appearance -> Editor" area.
1 min read
UncategorizedWordPressPHP
Social Media Sharing links without using a Plugin
If you ever want to include Social Media sharing links, like the ones found here on my blog, without wasting resources using some bloated plugin, you can use this code.
1 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
Require login to view WordPress site
You may want to force users to login in order to view a page within your WordPress site.
1 min read
PHPWordPressPHP
How to Grab first image from wordpress post content
Sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where you have pages / posts that don't have a featured image set but you want to pull an image to use on a listings page or some other page in your WordPress theme.
1 min read
Interactive ContentInteractiveCharts
Interactive Blog Demo: Charts, Sliders, and Visualizations
Explore the power of interactive blog content with dynamic charts, sliders, calculators, and data visualizations that engage readers and make complex information accessible.
8 min read
Topics
AI & AutomationEngineering LeadershipTools & StackAILeadershipSecurityEngineeringProductOrg DesignCultureLinuxDevelopmentMagentoPHPGravity FormsUncategorizedjQueryBootstrapInteractive Content