Tech Notes to Self

Writer’s Brief The Hook I saw a tweet claiming someone migrated 456 pages in “one shot” and my first instinct was to call BS. My second instinct was to share it anyway, because the underlying thing IS real. Main Points to Cover The “one shot” claims on AI Twitter are mostly exaggerated, and being honest about that is the move The real story is still wild: non-coders can build real websites by describing what they want The process of drafting a post about someone else’s work while keeping your own honest perspective The Angle The tension between AI hype and AI reality, and how being the person who calls out the BS while still being genuinely excited is the brand. ...

Writer’s Brief The Hook Every LinkedIn scraper I tried returned zero results. Seven different tools, zero posts. The fix was one character. Main Points to Cover The username alexdobrenko vs alex-dobrenko - one hyphen made every API call fail silently Silent failures are the worst kind - no error messages, just empty arrays. You assume the tool is broken when it’s your input. The meta-lesson: when everything fails the same way, the problem is probably upstream of all of them The Angle Debugging story. The comedy of trying 7 different tools before realizing the input was wrong the whole time. ...

Writer’s Brief Session covered building a Code for Creatives Cohort 1 Session 2 recap email. Started with slide updates demo (changing title, adding slides on c4c-slides.pages.dev), then built interactive HTML web view for client editing. Client pasted back content + structural notes (move project pitch up, replace promises with /slides skill demo). Rebuilt incorporating feedback, packaged /slides skill for public install (SKILL.md + install.sh pushed to GitHub). Converted HTML to MJML for Loops platform (zip with index.mjml + screenshots). Iterated on visual design from white to black to finally cream (#f5f0e8) matching course website aesthetic. ...

Writer’s Brief The Hook I clicked “Allow” on a macOS permission dialog without thinking. Then I asked what I’d actually just done. Main Points to Cover When you grant your terminal “Automation” permission to control Finder or System Events, you’re not granting it to one script. You’re granting it to EVERY script, npm package, and pip install that runs in that terminal. Forever. The fix was replacing 1 line of osascript with 10 lines of Swift that uses the proper macOS API (NSWorkspace). Zero permissions needed. The native API exists, people just reach for osascript because it’s easier to Google. The broader lesson: most “just click Allow” moments in macOS are trading long-term attack surface for short-term convenience. The permission system is good, but only if you understand what you’re actually granting. The Angle Personal discovery while building a small tool. Not preachy security advice - more “huh, I didn’t realize what that checkbox actually meant.” ...

Writer’s Brief (Outline) This section is a handoff for a writer — what the post is about and what to cover. The Hook I needed 5 new slides for a course I’m teaching in 2 hours and ended up learning that PowerPoint files are just zip archives full of XML — and that merging two presentations is way harder than it should be. Main Points to Cover Creating slides from HTML that match an existing deck’s exact style — extracting hex colors from XML, writing HTML templates, converting with html2pptx The failed merge attempts — python-pptx loses all formatting, OOXML direct merge produces corrupt files — before landing on “append then rearrange” The meta moment: making slides about building things with Claude Code… using Claude Code to build the slides The Angle The messy reality of “I’ll just quickly add some slides” turning into a 30-minute deep dive into PowerPoint’s internal XML structure. The gap between “this should be simple” and what actually works. ...

Writer’s Brief The Hook What if every decision, bug fix, and midnight build session was training data for a PM agent that could eventually run your projects? Main Points to Cover The idea: a meta-log that watches everything happening across your task system and extracts “story arcs” - not just events, but narratives with lessons The build itself was a perfect example of the process: brainstorm 3 options, pick the ambitious one, hit a stale-data bug, fix it live. The meta-log captured its own creation. The practical output: 693 events backfilled from git history, task threads, execution logs, and memory files. 7 story arcs auto-detected. A training export ready for fine-tuning. The Angle Personal discovery / building in public. You built a project management system, then built a system to learn from the project management system. It’s turtles all the way down, but the turtles are useful. ...

Writer’s Brief The Hook I ran a code audit on my own personal task system and the reviewers all said the same thing: stop building. Main Points to Cover The meta loop problem - when your task system becomes the biggest consumer of its own output (32% of all tasks were about improving the task system) The “operating system” realization - capture, management, execution, output layers. You’re not building a to-do app. You’re building an OS. And that changes everything about when to stop. The freeze as the hardest feature - choosing to not build anything for a week when the system is exciting and growing fast The Angle Personal discovery. You build something, it works, it grows, and then the growth itself becomes the problem. The system that was supposed to help you ship things becomes the thing you ship. The audit catches it. The panel of imaginary experts all independently say “freeze it.” And you do. ...