systemd OnFailure Hooks for a Home Server - Route Failure Without Calling It Monitoring
A service fails at 02:00, leaves a useful explanation in the journal, and stays unnoticed until someone needs it the next morning. A restar…
Soft 404s for a Small Website - Make the Status Match the Page
A visitor requests a URL that has never existed. The page clearly says “not found,” offers a search box, and links back to useful sections.…
Idempotency Keys for Small PHP APIs - Retry the Operation, Not the Side Effect
A client sends POST /orders. The server may have committed the order, but the response disappears during a timeout. Should the client retry…
systemd Dependencies for a Home Server - Separate Requirement from Ordering
A service should start after another service. That sounds like one rule, but systemd hears at least two separate questions: should starting…
Regression Evals for Small LLM Workflows - Test the Change, Not the Demo
A prompt is revised, a newer model is selected, or a retrieval setting is adjusted. The first few outputs look cleaner than before. Is the …
Stable IDs for Feed Entries - Let a Post Change Without Becoming New Again
A post is published, corrected the next morning, and moved to a cleaner URL a month later. To a reader, it is still the same post. To a fee…
Unique Constraints in MariaDB - Let Concurrent Requests Compete at the Database
Two registration requests ask for the same username at nearly the same time. Each request checks the database, and each sees that the name …
Host Header Validation in PHP - Treat the Request Authority as Input, Not Configuration
A small PHP application sometimes needs its own public address. It may build a password-reset link, produce a canonical URL, or redirect a …
rel="me" for a Personal Website - Connect Profiles Without Calling It Proof
A personal website may link to a code forge, a social profile, and a publishing account, but an ordinary hyperlink says little beyond “this…
JSON Request Bodies in PHP - Validate the Media Type, Bytes, and Shape Separately
A PHP endpoint receives bytes, not trustworthy application data. Calling json_decode() is necessary when those bytes contain JSON, but a su…