Extend and Improve: The Design You Already Have Is the Job
New code is cheap to draft. The lasting move is older: add to a design someone still understands, or tidy that design until the next change is easy.
18 min read
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System Design
A topic hub collecting every article tagged System Design. Use it to explore related posts and follow this theme across the site.
12 articles
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What Is an AI-Native App? A Working Definition, Architecture, and Practical Test
AI-native apps are not ChatGPT wrappers. They are systems where model inference, retrieval, memory, orchestration, tools, and evaluation are core infrastructure. Here is a working definition, the reference architecture, and a test you can apply to your own product.
21 min read
Modern Algorithms Every Programmer Should Know: From Matching Markets to HNSW and ARC
A deep systems engineering guide to the essential algorithms behind modern infrastructure — matching markets, rolling hashes, network flows, cache replacement, probabilistic sketches, and vector search.
42 min read
Build an Ultracode-Like Coding Workflow with Agno and AgentOS
A practical Agno-only blueprint using Workflow, native Agents, session state, bounded repair loops, persisted HITL review, and isolated coding workspaces.
20 min read
Build an Ultracode-Like Coding Workflow with LangGraph
A practical LangGraph-centered blueprint using typed graph state, dynamic Send fan-out, PostgreSQL checkpoints, deterministic candidate testing, interrupts, and isolated coding sandboxes.
19 min read
Core NATS: Subjects, Pub/Sub, Request/Reply, and Queue Groups
A practical tour of Core NATS — how subjects and wildcards route messages, why delivery is at-most-once, and how request/reply and queue groups replace load balancers for many microservice patterns.
9 min read
EDA with NATS: One Truth, Many Read Models — CQRS Projections
How a generic order domain flows from a relational write database through NATS KV and index subjects into OpenSearch and an analytics warehouse — without mistaking plumbing for source of record.
11 min read
JetStream KV Is a Change Stream, Not a Table
JetStream KV looks like a key-value database, but it is a stream abstraction with a latest-value view — watch for changes, design keys as hierarchies, and treat entity types as key prefixes.
7 min read
NATS JetStream: When Events Need to Survive the Moment
JetStream adds durable streams and consumer delivery state so publishers and subscribers can be temporally decoupled — capture, replay, and redeliver until acknowledged.
9 min read
NATS vs Kafka vs AWS SQS: A Decision Framework for Engineers
An honest comparison of delivery semantics, persistence, ops burden, fan-out, replay, portability, and cost — with symptom-based selection tables instead of benchmark wars.
16 min read
The Pieces of Modern, Effective Software Design
A practical ladder for growing a software system from one app and one database into observable, event-driven, permission-aware, AI-ready architecture.
18 min read
Blueprint Over Bytes: How Modern Engineering Shifted From Writing Code to Designing Systems
AI is changing the center of gravity in software engineering: less manual typing, more specification, validation, system design, and human judgment.
9 min read