Kubai Kevin

3 LLM context techniques: when each fails

Compare fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation and long context by failure mode, cost arithmetic and a decision checklist, with code for each.

15 min read · 1 November 2026

JWT sessions: revocation, rotation, storage

Why JWT revocation is a state problem, how refresh token rotation with reuse detection works, and how token storage shapes the threat model.

14 min read · 27 October 2026

APM is blind to your AI agents

Traditional APM monitors transport, not semantics. See how to instrument retrieval quality, token cost, and answer correctness in AI agent pipelines.

12 min read · 25 September 2026

RAG rots if you don’t refresh indexes

RAG indexes rot when source documents change. Learn change detection, chunk versioning, and incremental refresh patterns, with code and a cost model.

15 min read · 4 August 2026

When a vector DB misconfiguration breaks RAG silently

Vector DB misconfigurations cause RAG outages that look like app bugs. Learn to detect index errors, add circuit breakers, and instrument query latency.

11 min read · 29 July 2026

Designing Alert Triage That Suppresses Noise Safely

Classify alerts by shape and downstream impact, then suppress with evidence. Includes PromQL, SQL, breaker logic, and a 30-minute first step.

12 min read · 11 July 2026

Audit logs: ship them fast, keep them forever

Design an audit log pipeline that separates durability from searchability, with tiered retention, integrity hashing, and a cost model you can verify.

14 min read · 6 July 2026

LLMOps 2026: evaluation stack that replaced RAG dashboards

Why RAG dashboards miss real failures, and how to build an evaluation stack around task resolution, dataset rotation, prompt versioning, and drift checks.

13 min read · 5 July 2026

RAG is not enough: hybrid search + reranking in 2026

Dense retrieval alone ranks poorly. A two-stage pipeline of BM25 plus a cross-encoder reranker fixes it. Architecture, code, and how to measure it.

12 min read · 27 June 2026

Designing Offline-First Apps for Unreliable Networks

Offline-first architecture for metered, low-signal networks: storage, encryption, sync scheduling, conflict resolution, and how to measure each.

15 min read · 21 June 2026

Which AI wrappers made money in 2026

Most AI wrapper products fail on latency, cost, and churn rather than model quality. Here is a rubric, failure analysis, and code to build one that lasts.

10 min read · 12 June 2026

Observability 2026: ditch the three pillars

Why the logs-metrics-traces split breaks under load, and how to design a single event store with schemas, queries and migration steps.

14 min read · 10 June 2026

RAG pipelines: 4 silent prod killers

A practical guide to the silent failure modes that break RAG pipelines at scale: tokenizer drift, GPU fragmentation, index skew, and cache stampedes.

13 min read · 8 June 2026