Writing archive

Technical notes and implementation essays.

A chronological archive of systems, tooling, data, and architecture writing.

Model the Business, Not the Implementation

Optional values are useful when absence exists in the business. They become dangerous when they hide workflow state, API awkwardness, database looseness, or compiler discomfort.

4 min readengineering-thinkingtype-systemsdomain-modeling

Stop Using Option to Silence the Compiler

Not every 'maybe missing' value belongs in an optional type. A mental model for deciding when to reach for Option — by asking whether the uncertainty comes from reality, workflow, or implementation.

3 min readengineering-thinkingtype-systemsdomain-modeling

I Reduced Claude Code's Initial Context by 80% (Without Removing Any MCP Servers)

A single environment variable cut my Claude Code startup context from ~150k tokens to under 30k — and the per-session startup cost from over $1 to about $0.06.

3 min readclaude-codemcptooling