All Articles / Engineering notes
AI development, AI tools, 3D web, building products, and Java migration. Each article covers settings, measurements, and failures we actually ran into.
Our 3D layout tool has "Copy share link" but no backend. The whole layout is compressed into the part of the URL after #: compact JSON, then deflate-raw, then base64url. Share links for all seven Taiwan templates are 511 to 834 characters long.
Read articleMethods, frameworks, and hard-won lessons from putting AI into a real development workflow — from knowledge management to tooling.
I often run several AI work lanes at once. One writes code, one writes copy, one does research. To check progress, I switched between many windows.
Read articleNo. Playwright is a browser automation and testing tool. WebMCP lets a cooperating website declare capabilities hidden behind its interface as structured tools. They solve problems at different layers.
Read articleA source-based walkthrough of bilingual article checks, initial HTML validation, and advertising scope, separating enforced checks from recommendations and human review.
Read articleAn AI agent script that passed a hundred manual runs died on its first night under launchd. And not the noisy kind of death — the kind that prints an error message and then returns exit 0.
Read articleUse kof-notebooklm-mcp to examine stale replies, interrupted streams, and UI contamination, while distinguishing enterprise APIs from this browser integration.
Read articleTo turn a YouTube video into structured notes, the intuitive pipeline is: scrape the transcript, feed it to a model. You do not need any of that — Gemini's fileData accepts a YouTube URL directly, and the model watches the video itself, subtitles or not.
Read articleWhen AI returns an empty response, times out, or breaks the expected format, a product knows to stop. The harder case is a fluent, valid response that drops a constraint or makes the wrong judgment.
Read articleAI development began as an exercise in asking better questions: refine the prompt, add examples, and specify the output. Once models started reading repositories, using tools, and working for longer, the true unit of engineering was no longer a single instruction.
Read articleWhen I first used AI to build apps, my most common instruction was: "Finish this feature for me." Sometimes it worked so quickly that I thought I had found a new way to build software.
Read articlekof-notebooklm-mcp connects NotebookLM web interactions to an MCP workflow. Follow the package’s setup steps and distinguish installation from successful authenticated operation.
Read articleFirst-hand testing of models and tools: which one fits where in your workflow.
Lately there is a pile of "markdown for AI": llms.txt, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, OKF. They keep getting lumped together, so people ask "if I have one, do I still need the others?"
Read articleI built this site piece by piece with Claude Code and Codex. Every session starts cold, so they do not know what came before. I used Google’s Open Knowledge Format (OKF) to turn the repo’s "brain" into a structured Markdown knowledge base.
Read articleThe phrase "OKF replaces the vector database" is confusing because it pits three things from different layers against each other. OKF is a format for knowledge, RAG is a workflow for using it, and a vector database is one retrieval infrastructure.
Read articleA hypothetical retention-policy case separates similarity ranking, environment filters and version synchronization, with a runnable model-free example.
Read articleThe OKF spec is deliberately tiny: a directory of markdown, YAML frontmatter, and the three rules in section 11. This piece walks through a minimal, runnable bundle.
Read articleA source format does not repair retrieval automatically. Start from this site’s knowledge navigation to define index fields, version switching and answer checks.
Read articleAfter Google Cloud introduced the Open Knowledge Format (OKF), claims like “Beyond RAG” and “the vector database is being replaced” spread quickly. The three tools solve problems at different layers.
Read articleI had barely finished comparing Gemini 3 Pro, GPT-5.1, and Claude Opus 4.5 when the version numbers jumped again. Google released Gemini 3.1 Pro, OpenAI moved to GPT-5.6, Anthropic introduced Claude Fable 5, and xAI brought Grok 4.5 into the fight.
Read articleNotes should be captured when an idea appears. The decisive issue is not how smart the AI is, but whether thinking and recording are forced into separate places.
Read articleA January 2026 record of tool roles and manual handoffs, including the unfinished integration. This is not a current quota guide or a measured savings claim.
Read articleA single conversation asked three models to compare anonymous answers. This revised account separates the original observations from missing transcripts, controls, and scoring criteria.
Read articleA record of my 2025 workflow with GPT, Claude, Codex, and Cursor, including document cleanup and usage limits.
Read articleGetting started with Three.js, WebGL, and Blender, alongside playable experiments in the lab.
Part 05 turned a hand-prepared layout into 3D with Three.js. This one handles the plan you already have. It might be a screenshot, a PDF, or a DXF or DWG file from your architect.
Read articleBuild reproducible game reports with a frozen career-simulator engine, a runnable 4,096-case check, and a concrete approach to finding replay divergence.
Read articleInspect Last Pitch Derby’s actual export settings and files, distinguish compressed transfer size from memory cost, and diagnose startup and audio failures with a repeatable checklist.
Read articleFloor plans are the most universal language of space, and most people cannot actually read them — between that 2D drawing and "what it feels like to live there" sits a translation gap. I turned a real three-bedroom layout into a browser 3D space with orbiting views and draggable furniture.
Read articleMy Sokoban game has two solvers. The algorithm is identical — plain breadth-first search — one written in GDScript inside Godot, one in TypeScript running in the browser. This is not wheel reinvention, because they are two entirely different products.
Read articleBoxCat launched with 40 levels. For version 1.1.0 I wanted 100, with no unsolvable maps, no invented par scores, and no sudden drops in the difficulty curve.
Read articleA five-player game of Avalon traditionally needs a matchmaking service, a state store, a WebSocket server, and a cleanup job. Built on Cloudflare Durable Objects, those four things collapsed into one call to idFromName and one setAlarm.
Read articleOpening the network panel on Midnight Run: 1,894 KB transferred, of which 1,714 KB is two GLB models. On the same page three.js is 564 KB on disk and only 142 KB over the wire.
Read articleMidnight Run does not use a track I drew. It runs on a real block of Taipei's Xinyi District. The route comes from an OpenStreetMap snapshot, the city is generated in Blender, and what reaches the browser is a 1.3 MB GLB.
Read articleThe day I finished my typing test I ran it once myself. Speed, accuracy, passage changes — all fine. The next morning I switched back to Zhuyin and the screen turned red. I pressed ㄐ and the app immediately decided ㄐ was not 今. I had missed it the day before because I had tested in English.
Read articleWebGL is a low-level graphics API built into the browser. Through a canvas, JavaScript can send vertices, colors, textures, and shaders to the GPU to draw real-time 2D and 3D without Flash or another plug-in.
Read articleThree.js lets a website become more than a flat page. It wraps low-level WebGL in approachable ideas such as scenes, cameras, materials, and lights, making it practical to build 3D product views, data visualizations, games, and interactive stories with JavaScript.
Read articleBlender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite. Modeling, sculpting, materials, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, and video editing can all happen in one application. It can also become an automated asset factory for the web.
Read articleFirst-hand notes from idea to launch: what got built, why, and what it taught.
Our 3D layout tool has "Copy share link" but no backend. The whole layout is compressed into the part of the URL after #: compact JSON, then deflate-raw, then base64url. Share links for all seven Taiwan templates are 511 to 834 characters long.
Read articleTrace KeepOnFirst’s catalog, per-article modules, and loader map, then reproduce the checks that distinguish code splitting from merely hiding content.
Read articleTrace an /en/downloads routing failure through localization, native anchors, prerendering, and SPA fallback, with concrete checks for the actual returned file.
Read articleWith iCloud Photos enabled, deletions sync too. Distinguish device storage from cloud storage, then locate a usable independent copy before removing photos.
Read articleLink text should tell readers what they will find next. Concrete examples cover registration, downloads, and references, including what to keep short and what to explain alongside the link.
Read articleI have a row of "watch later" YouTube talks, each one easily half an hour, each one still unopened. Saving is quick; turning it into something in my head is the cost I keep deferring.
Read articleThe "chart" you see in the App Store is your country's chart. The United States, Japan, and Taiwan each have their own — not translations of one ranking, but three independent lists. Apple has never offered a global chart at all.
Read articleThe most damaging moment in a subscription product: the user pays, returns to the app, and the screen still says Free. The money moved; the entitlement did not. This is not a purchase-flow bug — it is a state synchronization problem.
Read articleI curled my own article page, stripped the scripts, and counted what was left: 46 characters. The title. Not one character of body text. All 34 article pages looked like this — to anything that does not execute JavaScript, the site was nearly blank.
Read articleA solo product has no PM to set priorities, but the product-management work does not disappear. Who needs a feature, why it matters now, and when to stop all return to the same person.
Read articleWhen an article looks important but there is no time to read it, saving it for later feels reasonable. Nothing is discarded, and we do not have to admit that we may never return.
Read articleKofAI Note 1.0.0 is now on the App Store. Its current promise can be compressed into one line: “Capture in one tap, and let AI read it for you.” That explains what the product does without defining what the user ultimately gains.
Read articleA summary makes material shorter without deciding what should happen next. A convincing idea may deserve only a saved source, further investigation, a public article, or a product experiment.
Read articleBabyDay did not begin with a product plan. Our second child was on the way, and the records from our first were scattered across LINE, phone notes, and paper. When we tried to look back, none of it lined up.
Read articleI honestly never planned to build a Pomodoro timer.
Read articleI had no publishing plan. One experiment became three posts in three days. This is a personal account of choosing topics, finding a writing rhythm, and organizing thoughts in the first few days on Medium.
Read articleAI can organize videos, documents, and code, but a complete-looking answer is different from a completed task.
Read articleLearning paths and migration checks for JBoss EAP and Spring Boot.
Compare XML, Java configuration, and ImportResource with one service and shared tests.
Read articleTrace transaction ownership across MQ, adapters, EJB, MDB, and service boundaries, then run an H2 delivery model.
Read articleContinue from Spring Boot into JBoss/WildFly/EAP with six foundation lessons and four practical follow-ups.
Read articleDistinguish individual instances, managed domains, profiles, and server groups.
Read articleUnderstand packaging and startup ownership for WARs, EARs, and adapters.
Read articleSeparate build dependencies, packaged files, and runtime visibility.
Read articleDistinguish pool names, JNDI bindings, drivers, and actual connections.
Read articleTrace delivery through MQ, the adapter, the EJB container, and an MDB.
Read articleDiagnose JVM, deployment, modules, resources, and application behavior in order.
Read articleCompare four evidence surfaces with a downloadable offline tool that distinguishes matches, differences, and missing evidence.
Read articleConvert the ticket API to WAR packaging with an external initializer and provided container dependency, then fix a non-root Location.
Read articleFor developers taking over legacy Java systems: six lessons and this introduction share one downloadable ticket API.
Read articleTrace pom.xml, main, and a ping endpoint to separate Maven, Spring, and Boot responsibilities.
Read articleFollow controller, service, and store constructors to understand the container and dependency injection.
Read articleFollow lab.label through files, profiles, environment variables, and command-line overrides.
Read articleTrace a ticket request through JSON conversion, field validation, a controller, and a service.
Read articleStart with DataSource, JdbcClient, and SQL to separate executing a write from committing it.
Read articleSeparate HTTP contracts, database effects, real network calls, and deployment evidence with the ticket API tests.
Read articleMove from EAP 6.4 and legacy Spring to EAP 8.1 and Boot 3.5 by separating Web, MDB, batch, and Angular boundaries, then comparing HTTP, DB, MQ, and log evidence.
Read articleLooking for tools to plan a home or place furniture? They are in the home planning tools.
Open home planning tools