The engineering blog
Practical ideas on software engineering, thoughtful architecture and building products that last.
The PHP2Shell update closes the hole, but attackers were already trying it before the fix came out. What to ask your developer or host, which checks cover the days before the patch, and what to do if something looks wrong.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Semrush tracked 400 US desktop buying searches for a year and found an AI Overview on 88% of them by August 2026. What the study shows, what it can't show, and five searches to run about your own company.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Chrome and Firefox turned on JPEG XL in October 2026, but Edge hasn't. What changed, what it means for your page speed, and five steps to test it and add it without breaking images.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Many tasks labeled agentic don't need an agent. Four questions, built on Gartner's advice and the model makers' own guidance, show whether yours might. Six more tell you what to ask whoever builds it.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Uber used up a year's AI budget in four months, then steadied its AI spending with cheaper models for some tasks, caching, visibility and caps. Here is how the same controls keep an AI feature's running cost predictable.
Bozhidar Ivanov
An AI-built app can work perfectly and still let anyone read or change its data. Before launch, check the access rules on every table, keep secret keys off the page and run your platform's own security checks.
Bozhidar Ivanov
When the person who built your software is gone, starting again can feel like the safe choice. Secure the accounts first, test a restore and a deploy, and let what you find decide between rescue, repair and rebuild.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Two OpenAI requests share long instructions and a cache key, yet the second reports zero cached tokens. See where the cache breakpoint sits, why a changing value such as the current time blocks reuse, and how to verify a fix.
Ivaylo Valchev
TypeSafe's Jev returns typed decisions instead of text. What it does, how open alternatives like Laya, Kev and OpenJev compare, and how to test one on your own data.
Bozhidar Ivanov
A Hetzner server accepted its remote disk unlock but stayed offline, because early boot network state named an interface the running system no longer used. See the evidence, the repair and the reboot checks.
Ivaylo Valchev
OpenAI's dots are always-on AI agents with their own cloud computers. Who can use them, how their safeguards work and what they mean for your business software.
Bozhidar Ivanov
We converted one existing Hetzner Cloud root disk to LUKS2 without reinstalling. Settle the boot path, partition space, early unlock, and recovery checks before you start yours.
Ivaylo Valchev
An LLM that writes into an existing database uses the document's names, not yours, and "not found" quietly turns into "new". That is how one import created 790 duplicate cars. The fix was not a smarter model. It was teaching the pipeline the database's vocabulary, and repairing the data from decisions written down in advance.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Five deployment problems that pass every local test but only surface on a real server, and the habit that catches each one before it reaches users.
ArcAI Team
llms.txt is a proposed file that points AI tools at a site's key pages. What it does, what it doesn't, and how to keep one from going stale.
Bozhidar Ivanov
Arc AI lets a language model convert articles into CMS-ready fields, never rewrite them or decide what gets published. AI output passes the same checks as a human editor's input.
Bozhidar Ivanov
An AI voice agent can stop when interrupted and then resume the old answer. This case shows how to test the symptom, identify where the audio came from, and verify that the next reply still works.
ArcAI Team
Scheduled posts usually mean a new status and a cron job. A future date field can do the whole job, if you write down what's allowed to catch up late.
Bozhidar Ivanov
SQLite can run a real production site with several writers, provided you set three things up correctly. The quick version, and the signs that mean it's time to move on.
Bozhidar Ivanov
A pre-launch audit found almost 5 MB of oversized images, 17 preloaded fonts and a script running ahead of the page title. Here's the quick version, and how to check your own site in ten minutes.
Bozhidar Ivanov
