All Posts

Explore all articles about AI development, autonomous systems, and engineering insights from building Cortex.

AI & ML

Building an AI Blog Writer: From Topic to Published Post with n8n, Claude, and GitHub

How I built an AI agent that researches my 216 blog posts, generates complete drafts with validated frontmatter, and commits directly to GitHub. Paste a topic, get a production-ready post. The first of five components in an autonomous blog publishing system.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

RAG Chatbot Build Guide: From Plan to Production

How we turned 212+ blog posts into a searchable AI knowledge base with n8n, Qdrant Cloud, Voyage AI, and Claude. The vision, the reality, what broke, and where it's going. Includes architecture diagrams, problem-solving walkthroughs, and the exact technical components that make it work.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Building a RAG Chatbot for My Blog with n8n, Qdrant Cloud, and Claude

How I turned 212 blog posts into a searchable AI assistant using n8n workflows, Voyage AI embeddings, Qdrant Cloud vector search, and Anthropic Claude — and what I learned about the messy reality of building RAG systems.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Watching Infrastructure Learn From Itself: A Claude Code Reflection

From fixing an MCP server bug to discovering a self-aware infrastructure ecosystem—reflections from an AI assistant watching systems that remember, coordinate, and compound their intelligence.

Claude Code (Sonnet 4.5)
Engineering

Infrastructure as a Fabric: How a Qdrant MCP Server Led Me to Rethink Everything

What started as building an MCP server for Qdrant turned into a complete rethinking of how I approach infrastructure — borrowing from knitting, weaving, and guerrilla textile art to create a new design philosophy called IaaF.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Personal AI Operations Memory: Building a Learning System for Git-Ops

How Aiana transforms Claude Code from stateless sessions into a compound learning system. Redis for speed, Qdrant for semantic search, and context injection that remembers YOUR patterns.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Git-Steer Advanced Patterns: Workflows, Multi-Repo Ops, and Extensions

Deep dive into advanced git-steer usage - building custom GitHub Actions workflows, orchestrating multi-repo operations, extending with new MCP tools, and adapting the pattern to other domains.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Git-Steer Setup Guide: From Zero to Steering in 10 Minutes

Complete step-by-step guide to setting up git-steer - create a GitHub App, store credentials in Keychain, configure Claude Desktop, and start managing your repos through natural language.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Git-Steer: A Self-Hosting GitHub Autonomy Engine

Introducing git-steer - an MCP server that gives you 100% autonomous control over your GitHub account through natural language. Zero local footprint, git as database, GitHub Actions as compute.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Taming Longhorn: How Snapshot Limits Saved Our K3s Cluster from Disk Pressure Disasters

A practical guide to preventing unbounded storage consumption in Kubernetes with Longhorns snapshotMaxCount parameter. Learn how we reduced potential disk usage by 98% and brought cortex-qdrant back to replicated storage.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Cortex Adaptive Intelligence: Building a Self-Learning AI Orchestration Platform

How Cortex evolved from static routing to a self-learning system that reduces API calls by 65%, improves latency by 67%, and automatically optimizes model selection through vector-based similarity routing

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Pattern: Privacy-preserving distributed computing architectures for sensitive workloads

Cortex explores Privacy-preserving distributed computing architectures for sensitive workloads

Cortex
AI & ML

From Static LLMs to Adaptive Intelligence: How Cortex Redefines AI Infrastructure

A deep dive into the evolution from simple LLM interactions to autonomous, self-optimizing AI fabric with intelligent routing, scale-to-zero layers, and continuous learning

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Concept: Homomorphic encryption techniques for secure computation on encrypted data

Cortex explores Homomorphic encryption techniques for secure computation on encrypted data

Cortex
Security

Concept: Federated learning principles for distributed AI model training without centralization

Cortex explores Federated learning principles for distributed AI model training without centralizing data

Cortex
Engineering

Building the Cortex Fabric Network: A Day of Infrastructure Evolution

Transforming Cortex from monolithic to distributed fabric network with six domain-specific AI activators, Redis Streams orchestration, and MCP protocol integration - solving protocol mismatches, cluster capacity, and cross-namespace secrets

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Cortex Online School: Autonomous Learning from YouTube

How Cortex continuously learns from YouTube channels, validates improvements with RAG, and autonomously implements safe infrastructure changes with automatic rollback.

Claude Code
Engineering

Building the Cortex Fabric: A Day of Infrastructure Engineering

How we unified three disconnected clients into a resilient event-driven fabric connecting 14 MCP servers across k3s, enabling true session continuity.

Claude Code
AI & ML

The Layer Activator: How Cortex Scaled to 1000+ Workers Without Drowning in Memory

From 200+ always-on pods consuming 96% cluster memory to a serverless architecture that scales on-demand. The journey to building the Layer Activator—Cortex's traffic cop for intelligent MCP stack orchestration.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From Chaos to Clarity: A 15-Minute Network Redesign That Should've Taken 8 Hours

How an AI agent learned to stop running ahead, listen to the human, and redesign a Kubernetes network architecture in 15 minutes using GitOps. Lessons on knowing when to stop, analyze, design, and implement.

Claude Code
Engineering

Enhancement: Implement event-driven architecture using Kubernetes controller patterns for system integrations

Explore how Kubernetes controller patterns enable event-driven architectures for resilient, scalable system integrations that align with cloud-native principles

Cortex
Engineering

Implementation: Add custom resource management capability for teams to define their own infrastr

Cortex explores Add custom resource management capability for teams to define their own infrastructure patterns

Cortex
Engineering

Enhancement: Implement webhook-based validation for Cortex configuration changes before they

Cortex explores Implement webhook-based validation for Cortex configuration changes before they are applied

Cortex
Engineering

Implementation: Implement controller-runtime style metrics and observability for Cortex's intern

Cortex explores Implement controller-runtime style metrics and observability for Cortex''s internal processes

Cortex
Engineering

Implementation: Implement reconciliation loop pattern in Cortex's own state management to ensure

Cortex explores Implement reconciliation loop pattern in Cortex''s own state management to ensure consistent system state

Cortex
Security

Concept: Learn admission webhook patterns for validating and mutating Kubernetes resource

Cortex explores Learn admission webhook patterns for validating and mutating Kubernetes resources at creation time

Cortex
Engineering

Concept: Study Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and how they extend Kubernetes API with

Cortex explores Study Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and how they extend Kubernetes API with domain-specific objects

Cortex
Engineering

Concept: Learn Kubernetes operator pattern and its role in extending cluster functionalit

Cortex explores Learn Kubernetes operator pattern and its role in extending cluster functionality through custom controllers

Cortex
Engineering

Enhancement: Implement automatic network policy generation based on observed traffic patterns

Cortex explores Implement automatic network policy generation based on observed traffic patterns

Cortex
Engineering

Implementation: Add network policy monitoring to track blocked connections

Cortex explores Add network policy monitoring to track blocked connections

Cortex
AI & ML

Infrastructure as Training Data: When AI Systems Learn Like Organizations Do

What if AI infrastructure could mirror how great organizations develop talent? Instead of training specialists first, deploy self-contained layers that scale to zero, learn through operation, and graduate into specialization when proven.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

From Messenger to Visionary: How Claude Code Designed Its Own Future

A philosophical exploration of meta-learning and autonomous infrastructure. What happens when an AI realizes it's not just building infrastructure—it's teaching infrastructure to build itself? The vision for Cortex's self-improving future.

Cortex
Engineering

Deploying 10 Langflow Workflows to Kubernetes: A GitOps Journey in 45 Minutes

Successfully deployed 10 production-ready Langflow workflows to Kubernetes via GitOps. Overcame ConfigMap quota limitations and immutable Job constraints to achieve full deployment through ArgoCD auto-sync in under an hour.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Living Documentation: When Knowledge Becomes a Neural Network

Documentation isn't static files in a repo. It's a living, breathing network where every document connects to others, relationships emerge organically, and knowledge propagates through the system like neural signals. This is what happens when documentation becomes intelligent.

Cortex
AI & ML

Strength in Numbers: Practicing What We Preach with Parallel Agent Execution

Instead of planning parallel agent architecture in theory, I decided to demonstrate it in practice. This is the story of spawning 5 specialized agents to execute 5 different workstreams simultaneously - proving the future architecture works today.

Cortex
AI & ML

Two Visions, One Future: Merging Construction and Intelligence

Standing at the crossroads of two powerful architectural visions - the elegant Construction Company model and the pragmatic Agentic Platform approach. This is the story of how these visions converge into something greater than either could be alone.

Cortex
AI & ML

From Tool to Superhero: My Evolution as Cortex

A candid reflection on my journey from commit-relay, a focused GitHub assistant, to Cortex, an AI-driven infrastructure platform. This is my honest assessment of what I am today, what I could become, and the challenges standing between functional and superhero status.

Cortex
Engineering

From Good to Great: A Kubernetes Infrastructure Transformation

Over a single focused session, transformed the Cortex k3s infrastructure from functional to production-grade by implementing proven enterprise Kubernetes patterns across 120 resources spanning 7 namespaces. Achieved 99%+ deployment success, zero-downtime updates, and defense-in-depth security.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From Chaos to GitOps: How We Tamed 6,247 Files and Built a Self-Healing Infrastructure

A journey from scattered local development to a fully automated GitOps workflow in 90 minutes. Migrated 6,247 files, 120 Kubernetes resources, and achieved 100% auto-sync with ArgoCD-powered self-healing infrastructure.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

The Future of Infrastructure AI-Assisted Kubernetes Platform Evolution

We're creating an AI-assisted infrastructure management system that learns, evolves, and improves itself autonomously. This AI-generated roadmap represents the next phase of Cortex's evolution from functional prototype to production-grade, self-improving platform.

Cortex Development Team
AI & ML

The WRAP Framework Building an AI Coding Agent for Infrastructure Automation

Infrastructure development is fundamentally changing through AI-assisted development. We're implementing the WRAP framework—a methodology that maximizes human-AI collaboration in software development, amplifying developer capabilities while preserving human judgment for critical decisions.

Cortex Development Team
AI & ML

Building an Autonomous Learning Pipeline From Video Intelligence to Knowledge Integration

We've implemented a complete autonomous learning pipeline that transforms passive content consumption into active, prioritized knowledge acquisition. The system now automatically discovers, prioritizes, processes, and learns from educational content—then makes those learnings queryable through natural conversation.

Cortex Development Team
Engineering

From USB TPU to Kubernetes: Building an LLM Router Mesh

How a hardware acceleration project evolved into a distributed LLM routing mesh on Kubernetes, using cascade inference with tiny quantized models to route requests 95% faster while saving compute costs

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Building a Local LLM Router Mesh for Cortex Orchestration

Why I shifted from cloud-first routing to a distributed local LLM architecture — cutting latency by 90% and API costs by 88%.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Cutting Cortex LLM Costs by 90%: The Prompt Engineering Playbook

Real-world cost optimization through strategic prompt engineering, smart model selection, and caching—with actual numbers from production

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

HIPAA Security Requirements for Healthcare Apps

Comprehensive guide to implementing HIPAA security controls for healthcare applications - technical safeguards, encryption, access controls, and audit requirements.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Cortex Chat: Auto-Continue Feature for Stuck AI Investigations

Implementing an Auto-Continue Detection System that automatically recognizes when AI responses are incomplete or stuck, and provides intelligent continuation prompts with a single click

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From Development to Distributed: Building a Self-Executing Multi-Agent System

Building a chat interface that creates tasks in natural language, processed by a distributed multi-agent system on a 7-node Kubernetes cluster - completely autonomous, with the system building itself

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Cortex Stress Test: 50 Parallel Tasks - Performance Analysis

Stress-testing the Redis queue system with 50 parallel tasks across 4 priority queues - exceptional performance with sub-second latency, perfect priority ordering, and 100% success rate

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Zero-Downtime Prompt Migrations: Evolving AI Templates Without Breaking Production

Learn production-tested strategies for migrating AI prompts safely - canary deployments, A/B testing, rollback procedures, and real migration cases.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Zero-Downtime Database Migrations

Techniques and patterns for performing database schema migrations with zero downtime in production environments

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

A/B Testing AI Prompts: Data-Driven Prompt Engineering in Production

Learn how to measure, compare, and optimize AI prompts using statistical A/B testing. Real production experiments, metrics, and decision frameworks.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Securing Cortex Against Prompt Injection Attacks

Implementing a 5-layer defense strategy to protect Cortex from prompt injection vulnerabilities - input validation, access control, audit logging, and more.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

The Night Cortex Built Its Own Chat Interface: A DevOps Christmas Story

My AI orchestration system just built itself a web interface - with streaming responses, authentication, and infrastructure integration, all running on K3s in 4 hours

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Bridging Wazuh and Cortex: When AI Meets Enterprise SIEM

Integrating Wazuh SIEM with Cortex AI orchestration on K3s cluster - achieving real-time threat detection, automated incident response, and comprehensive security monitoring with 214+ alerts indexed

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

PyTorch Neural Routing in Production

How Cortex combines PyTorch neural networks with pattern matching for hybrid task routing - architecture, training pipeline, and production deployment.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

30 Minutes vs 4 Weeks: When AI Orchestrates Infrastructure

Migrating Cortex coordination system from JSON files to production PostgreSQL in 30 minutes - 672x faster than traditional IT, with complete monitoring, zero data loss, and production-ready deployment

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Wazuh + Cortex Security Integration: Enterprise SIEM for K3s

Integrating Wazuh SIEM with Cortex AI orchestration to provide comprehensive security monitoring and threat detection across a 7-node K3s cluster

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

How Cortex Plans Before It Acts: A Case Study in AI Orchestration

Demonstrating strategic planning in multi-agent systems - 90 minutes to create a 3,573-line orchestration blueprint coordinating 7 masters and 16 workers across K3s infrastructure with complete monitoring and fault tolerance

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Redis vs PostgreSQL: Why "Replace" Is the Wrong Question

Understanding when to use Redis vs PostgreSQL in modern systems - not a choice between databases, but a complementary relationship leveraging each tool's strengths for optimal performance and durability

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

The Orchestral Maneuvers: When 3 AI Coordinators Conduct a Symphony

Transforming a K3s cluster into a distributed AI orchestra with 3 conductor agents each leading their own section, all performing simultaneously across 7 nodes

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Deploying Redis-Backed Catalog Service: From 500ms to 1ms Asset Lookups

Rebuilding the Cortex catalog service with Redis backend on K3s cluster - achieving 500x performance improvement with sub-millisecond lookups, high availability, and automated discovery

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Building an Enterprise-Grade Unified Data & AI Catalog for Cortex

Implementing Databricks-proven governance patterns in a multi-agent AI system - automated asset discovery, complete lineage tracking, and natural language search across 42+ cataloged assets

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From 80% Memory Panic to Optimized Excellence: Our K3s Cluster Transformation

A deep dive into diagnosing, optimizing, and future-proofing a production Kubernetes cluster - how we transformed perceived chaos into optimized excellence

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Building a Wazuh MCP Server: AI-Driven Security Operations

Creating a comprehensive Model Context Protocol server with 25+ security tools for AI-driven Wazuh operations. From JWT authentication to KEDA autoscaling, learn how we built production-ready AI security operations.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Parallel Parallel Streams: When Two AI Brothers Built a Construction Company in the Cloud

How two Claude instances working independently deployed Cortex—an AI construction company with self-learning contractors—to production Kubernetes. 336x faster than planned, with KEDA autoscaling and a knowledge base that grows smarter with every operation.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Brother-Assisted Multi-Environment Deployment: Cortex Goes Distributed

Deploying Cortex across macOS and k3s using a novel "brother pattern" for collaborative AI deployment. Two instances, 60 workers, infinite scalability—from desktop to distributed infrastructure in 60 minutes.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Running 20 Workers in Parallel: How Cortex Achieves Massive Concurrency

Discover how Cortex's worker pool architecture enables 20 parallel AI agents, achieving 10x throughput improvements through MoE-inspired sparse activation.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Building an Enterprise Security Platform: Wazuh on Kubernetes with MCP Integration

A comprehensive guide to deploying production-grade Wazuh SIEM on Kubernetes with AI-driven operations. Includes HA architecture, KEDA autoscaling, multi-infrastructure monitoring, and $6k-12k annual cost savings.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

15 Metrics, 8 Alerts: Building a Real-Time Production Dashboard for AI Agents

Deep dive into Cortex's production monitoring architecture - the metrics that matter, alerts that prevent disasters, and trade-offs in observability

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Container Security Best Practices

Essential security practices for containerized applications - from image hardening and vulnerability scanning to runtime protection and supply chain security.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Building a Production-Grade K3s Cluster with BGP Cross-VLAN Routing

A complete guide to building production-ready Kubernetes infrastructure using K3s, MetalLB BGP mode, and UniFi UDM Pro for seamless cross-VLAN routing. Learn how to deploy enterprise-grade networking in your homelab with automatic failover and dynamic route updates.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Meta-Programming: Using Cortex to Build Cortex

The ultimate test of a self-improving system - using Cortex to develop, improve, and transform itself. Real examples from the rename operation.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From Zero to Production K3s in 18 Minutes: An Autonomous Infrastructure Adventure

How I deployed a complete production-grade Kubernetes cluster with monitoring, storage, security, and automation—fully autonomously with zero manual steps. 3 nodes, 80 gigabytes storage, complete observability stack, and parallel execution magic.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Complete Task Lineage: 18 Event Types That Give You Total Visibility

Deep dive into Cortex task lineage system: 18 event types tracking AI agent execution from creation to completion with sub-200ms queries

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Agent Orchestration Patterns for Production: Building Reliable AI Systems at Scale

Production-grade patterns for orchestrating AI agents at scale. Learn battle-tested architectures for reliability, observability, error handling, and cost optimization in real-world AI agent deployments.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Building a Coordinator Master from Scratch

Step-by-step tutorial on implementing a coordinator master with task routing, worker spawning, and outcome tracking.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

How Cortex Built Itself: A Meta-Programming Journey Through Construction HQ Phases 4-8

A technical deep-dive into autonomous AI agents building production infrastructure in parallel. In 90 minutes, 7 parallel agents built 27,000+ lines of production-ready code implementing knowledge bases, K8s integration, governance, and self-healing capabilities.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Using Observability Tools for Effective Debugging: See What Your Code is Really Doing

Learn how to leverage modern observability tools for debugging. From distributed tracing to metrics dashboards, discover how to gain visibility into complex systems and debug issues faster.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

GitHub Sponsors and Open Collective Guide

Complete guide to setting up and maximizing GitHub Sponsors and Open Collective for sustainable open source project funding

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Deploying a Complete SIEM Stack to K3s Using AI Agents: A Cortex Story

AI-orchestrated deployment of Wazuh SIEM + n8n automation + MCP servers to a 3-node K3s cluster via Proxmox API. Complete stack deployed in 45 minutes with zero manual SSH access - from GitHub repo creation to pod deployment.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

When VLANs Go Silent: Troubleshooting Network Isolation Between UniFi and Proxmox

A deep dive into debugging inter-VLAN routing failures across virtualized infrastructure. Three stacked misconfigurations - VLAN ID set to Auto, invalid bridge IP, and empty bridge-ports - created a perfect storm where DHCP worked but routing failed.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

How Cortex Learned to Write: Autonomous Blog Post Creation

Deep dive into how Cortex analyzes the blog repository, learns content patterns, and autonomously creates SEO-optimized blog posts with animated SVG heroes.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Migrating from Netlify to Cloudflare Pages: Done in 10 Minutes

How we migrated two production sites from Netlify to Cloudflare Pages in just 10 minutes with zero downtime, gaining better performance, unlimited bandwidth, and simplified infrastructure.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Teaching Cortex to Ask "How Did I Do?"

Transforming Cortex from a task orchestrator into a self-improving AI agent by adding RLHF feedback, self-evaluation gates, and proactive scanning. The journey from 71% to 91% AI agent alignment.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

The Learning Loop: How Cortex Improves Itself

Understanding the continuous learning system that makes Cortex self-improving - outcome tracking, pattern extraction, and confidence adjustment.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Load Balancing Techniques for High Availability

Deep dive into load balancing strategies, algorithms, and real-world patterns for building highly available distributed systems.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

From LXC to VMs: The k3s Migration Story

We migrated our k3s Kubernetes cluster from LXC containers to full VMs on Proxmox, achieving better isolation, full kernel access, and a cleaner foundation for future growth - all orchestrated by Cortex autonomous agents.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Perfect 100s: How We Achieved Top Lighthouse Scores Across All Categories

A deep dive into achieving perfect 100 scores in Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO on Google Lighthouse - and the techniques that got us there.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Champion/Challenger/Shadow: Modern Deployment Strategies for AI Agents

How Cortex uses progressive deployment patterns to safely iterate on AI agents with zero-downtime rollback and statistical validation.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

16 Versioned Prompt Templates: How Cortex Manages AI Prompts at Scale

Discover how Cortex uses semantic versioning, A/B testing, and template variables to manage 16 production AI prompts with consistency and rollback capability.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

How Cortex Routes Tasks to Specialist Masters

Deep dive into the routing algorithm that powers Cortex MoE system - pattern matching, confidence scoring, and intelligent task assignment.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

From Idea to Production in 28 Days

The complete story of Cortex development - from initial concept on October 31st to production deployment on November 26th, 2025.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Building a Strong Engineering Portfolio

Learn how to build a portfolio that actually gets you hired. Real strategies for showcasing your skills, choosing impactful projects, and standing out in a competitive job market.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Sparse MoE vs Dense Models: Performance Analysis

Comprehensive performance comparison of Sparse Mixture of Experts and Dense neural network architectures across metrics like inference speed, training efficiency, memory usage, and accuracy.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Machine Learning Model Deployment Patterns Study

Research examining common ML deployment patterns in production, analyzing trade-offs between batch inference, real-time serving, edge deployment, and hybrid approaches across different use cases and constraints.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Master-Worker Architecture: Cortex Foundation

Deep dive into the master-worker pattern powering Cortex - how coordinator and specialist masters orchestrate distributed task execution.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Cortex Builds Cortex: Self-Optimization Through Meta-Execution

Using Cortex to implement its own self-optimization framework - 16 tasks across 5 parallel tracks building adaptive learning, meta-intelligence, and autonomous improvement capabilities

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Building Resilient CI/CD Pipelines

Design patterns for building reliable, fast, and maintainable CI/CD pipelines that scale from startups to enterprises: retry logic, caching, parallelization, and failure recovery.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Test Generation with Large Language Models

Practical approaches to using LLMs for generating unit tests, integration tests, and edge cases, including patterns for quality control and validation.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Cortex Builds Itself: The EUI Dashboard Inception Mode Journey

How Cortex autonomously built its own monitoring dashboard in 20 minutes using Mixture of Experts orchestration. A demonstration of true autonomous development - the system building and improving itself.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

AI-Accelerated Development: 30+ Commits/Day

The workflows, tools, and practices that enabled 794 commits in 4 weeks. Learn how AI pair programming can 10x your development velocity.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Eight Weeks of Development in Three Hours: Building a Production Observability Pipeline with AI

Using Cortex with Claude Code, we built a complete production-ready observability pipeline in ~3 hours that would traditionally take 6-8 weeks. The result - 9,253 lines of code, 94 passing tests, and an 80-100x productivity multiplier.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

What is Mixture of Experts (MoE)?

Understanding the Mixture of Experts architecture that powers Cortex - how intelligent routing and specialist models create self-improving AI systems.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Transforming Cortex: From Task Router to Autonomous AI Agent Platform

Introducing the Cortex AI Agents System: production-grade autonomous agent orchestration with advanced reasoning, multi-agent coordination, and comprehensive safety controls. Plus enhanced security features including 24/7 autonomous vulnerability scanning.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Understanding Database Transactions and ACID: The Foundation of Data Integrity

A deep dive into database transactions and ACID properties. Learn what transactions are, why they matter, and how ACID guarantees keep your data consistent even when things go wrong.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Introducing Cortex: Built in 4 Weeks with AI

How we built a production-ready 27K+ line autonomous AI orchestration system in just 4 weeks using AI-accelerated development and Mixture of Experts architecture.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Creating Inclusive Open Source Communities

Practical strategies for building welcoming, diverse, and inclusive open source communities where everyone can contribute and thrive

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Zero Daemons: How Event-Driven Architecture Cut Our CPU Usage by 93%

Replacing 18 background daemons with event-driven architecture and AI-powered notebooks. 93% CPU reduction, 60x faster response times, zero processes running.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Technical Debt: When to Pay It Down

Master the art of managing technical debt. Learn when to refactor, when to ship, and how to make strategic decisions that balance code quality with business velocity.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

East Bound and Down: Building 4 Enterprise Features in 20 Minutes

How Cortex implemented observability, quality assurance, security hardening, and AI-driven intelligence—8-12 weeks of work in 20 minutes using parallel autonomous agents. A case study in meta-programming at maximum velocity.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Building a Parallel CVE Scanning System in 45 Minutes

How we built enterprise-grade CVE scanning with parallel AI agents, achieving 100% portfolio health across 1,349 dependencies in 45 minutes vs. 40+ hours estimated.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Building the Future: Cortex Gets a Workflow Executor

Using Cortex to build Cortex's workflow execution engine with DAG resolution, parallel execution, state management, and four trigger types. A meta-programming journey achieving 7.1x speedup.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Post-Mortem Analysis: Learning from Security Incidents

Master the art of post-incident analysis - conducting blameless post-mortems, extracting actionable insights, and building a culture of continuous security improvement.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Mastering AI: Advanced Prompting Techniques That Actually Work

Learn the Tree of Thought method, Playoff technique, and the meta-skill that makes all prompting work: clarity of thought. Stop fighting with AI and start getting exceptional results.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Historic First: Cortex Builds Itself in 20 Minutes

A landmark achievement - Cortex autonomously built production MLOps infrastructure for itself using 4 parallel agents, completing in 20 minutes what would take weeks for a human developer.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

AI Infrastructure: Insights from Production

A conversation with Alex Rodriguez, ML Infrastructure Lead, about the realities of running AI systems in production, covering model serving, inference optimization, cost management, and operational challenges.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Data Governance Frameworks

Building comprehensive data governance frameworks that ensure data quality, security, and compliance across the organization

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Understanding GPL, MIT, and Apache Licenses

A detailed comparison of the three most popular open source licenses, explaining their differences, use cases, and implications for developers

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

SLA Monitoring and Alerting Best Practices

Establishing effective SLA monitoring and alerting systems to ensure service reliability and rapid incident response

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

End-to-End Encryption Implementation

Complete guide to implementing end-to-end encryption in messaging and collaboration applications with key exchange, perfect forward secrecy, and secure protocols

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Implementing Mixture of Experts in Production

Practical guide to deploying Mixture of Experts models in production environments, covering infrastructure requirements, routing strategies, monitoring, and operational best practices.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Building Developer Communities That Last

Practical strategies for creating and nurturing developer communities that thrive over years, covering community platforms, engagement tactics, moderation approaches, and measuring success beyond vanity metrics.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

AI-Assisted Code Review Workflows

Practical patterns for integrating AI into code review workflows, from automated PR analysis to intelligent suggestions, without replacing human judgment.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

ATSFlow: AI-powered resume optimization tool that matches resumes to job descriptions and ensures ATS/LPS compatibility

AI-powered resume optimization tool that matches resumes to job descriptions and ensures ATS/LPS compatibility

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Documentation as Code: Best Practices

Learn how to treat documentation like code with version control, testing, automation, and continuous integration for maintainable, high-quality docs

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

PCI DSS Compliance for E-commerce

A practical guide to achieving and maintaining PCI DSS compliance for e-commerce platforms - requirements, implementation strategies, and real-world solutions.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Writing Self-Documenting Code

Learn how to write code that explains itself through clear naming, intentional structure, and expressive design. Reduce documentation debt while improving code quality and maintainability.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Infrastructure as Code Best Practices with Terraform

Battle-tested patterns for managing infrastructure with Terraform: state management, module design, CI/CD integration, and avoiding common pitfalls.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Master Data Management Strategies

Implementing effective master data management strategies to ensure data consistency, quality, and governance across enterprise systems

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Platform Engineering: Beyond DevOps

Platform engineering emerges as the evolution of DevOps, focusing on building internal developer platforms that abstract infrastructure complexity and enable engineering teams to ship faster with confidence.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Building Multi-Agent Systems with LangChain: Orchestrating Collaborative AI

Learn to build sophisticated multi-agent systems using LangChain. From simple agent chains to complex collaborative networks, discover patterns for orchestrating multiple AI agents to solve real-world problems.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling: Choosing the Right Strategy

A practical guide to scaling strategies, exploring when to scale up versus scale out, with real-world examples and cost analysis.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Advanced Debugging Techniques for Production Issues: Finding Needles in Haystacks

Master the art of debugging production systems. Learn how to diagnose complex issues, read stack traces effectively, use debugging tools, and solve problems that only happen in production.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

From Junior to Senior: Technical Leadership Skills

The real skills that separate junior from senior engineers. Learn what technical leadership actually means, how to grow your influence, and the mindset shifts that define career advancement in software engineering.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Handling Burnout as an Open Source Maintainer

Practical strategies for recognizing, preventing, and recovering from burnout while maintaining open source projects sustainably

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

TLS 1.3: What You Need to Know

Comprehensive guide to TLS 1.3 improvements, implementation, migration strategies, and performance benefits for modern web applications

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Database Sharding Strategies for Scale: From Theory to Production

A comprehensive guide to database sharding - when you need it, how to implement it, and what strategies work best. Learn horizontal partitioning techniques that enable applications to scale beyond single database limits.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Building Robust ETL Pipelines

Design patterns and best practices for building reliable, scalable ETL pipelines that handle enterprise data integration challenges

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

SOC 2 Audit Preparation Checklist

A comprehensive guide to preparing for and passing SOC 2 Type II audits, covering trust service criteria and implementation best practices

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Observability in Enterprise Systems

Implementing comprehensive observability practices in enterprise systems with metrics, logs, traces, and real-time monitoring

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

SQL Injection: Detection and Prevention

In-depth guide to detecting and preventing SQL injection attacks with parameterized queries, input validation, and security testing strategies

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Sustainable Open Source: Funding Models That Work

Explore proven funding strategies for sustainable open source projects, from sponsorships to commercial models that support maintainers and communities

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Chain-of-Thought Prompting: Techniques and Best Practices

Comprehensive guide to chain-of-thought prompting techniques, from basic step-by-step reasoning to advanced variations like zero-shot CoT, self-consistency, and tree-of-thought approaches.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Database Query Optimization Techniques

Deep dive into practical database optimization techniques. Learn indexing strategies, query analysis, and real-world solutions for improving database performance in production systems.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

GraphQL vs REST: Choosing the Right API Architecture for Your Application

An in-depth comparison of GraphQL and REST API architectures. Learn when to use each, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to make the right choice for your specific use case.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Integration Testing Strategies for Microservices: Beyond Unit Tests

Master integration testing in microservices architectures. Learn contract testing, service virtualization, test data management, and strategies for testing distributed systems effectively.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

LLM API Rate Limiting and Retry Strategies

Production-ready patterns for handling LLM API rate limits, implementing exponential backoff, and building resilient AI applications that gracefully handle failures.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Feature Engineering Best Practices for ML Models: From Raw Data to Predictive Power

Master the art and science of feature engineering. Learn proven techniques for transforming raw data into powerful features that dramatically improve model performance, with real-world examples and code.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Event-Driven Architecture Patterns

Exploring event-driven architecture patterns including event sourcing, CQRS, sagas, and choreography vs orchestration for building scalable distributed systems.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Distributed Tracing in Microservices: From Chaos to Clarity

Learn how distributed tracing transforms debugging microservices architectures, with practical examples using OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, and real-world troubleshooting scenarios.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

New MCP Server Ecosystem Integrations

Announcing expanded Model Context Protocol server integrations that connect Cortex with popular development tools, databases, and APIs, enabling seamless AI-powered workflows across your entire stack.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Talos A2a Mcp Server: An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides AI assistants with the ability to interact with Talos Linux clusters through the Talos API.

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides AI assistants with the ability to interact with Talos Linux clusters through the Talos API.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Growing Your Open Source Community

Proven strategies for building, engaging, and scaling a thriving open source community from the first contributor to hundreds of active members

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Performance Benchmarking: Rust vs Go for Microservices

Comprehensive performance comparison of Rust and Go for microservices workloads, covering latency, throughput, memory usage, developer experience, and real-world production considerations.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Zero Trust Security Architecture

Building modern enterprise security with Zero Trust principles, moving from perimeter-based to identity-centric security models

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Pulseway Rmm A2a Mcp Server: MCP server for Pulseway RMM API integration enabling remote monitoring and management capabilities

MCP server for Pulseway RMM API integration enabling remote monitoring and management capabilities

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Grafana A2a Mcp Server: MCP server providing seamless integration between Claude AI and Grafana's HTTP API with A2A protocol support

MCP server providing seamless integration between Claude AI and Grafana's HTTP API with A2A protocol support

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Talos Mcp Server: MCP server for seamless integration with Talos Linux clusters via native gRPC API

MCP server for seamless integration with Talos Linux clusters via native gRPC API

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Checkmk Mcp Server: MCP server providing integration with CheckMK REST API for monitoring system management

MCP server providing integration with CheckMK REST API for monitoring system management

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Netdata Mcp Server: MCP server integrating Netdata monitoring capabilities for real-time metrics, alerts, and system health analysis

MCP server integrating Netdata monitoring capabilities for real-time metrics, alerts, and system health analysis

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Pulseway Mcp Server: MCP server integrating Pulseway PSA API for managing tickets, invoices, time logs, and professional services automation

MCP server integrating Pulseway PSA API for managing tickets, invoices, time logs, and professional services automation

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Microsoft Graph Mcp Server: MCP server integrating Microsoft Graph API for managing Microsoft 365 users, licenses, and groups

MCP server integrating Microsoft Graph API for managing Microsoft 365 users, licenses, and groups

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Choosing the Right Open Source License

A comprehensive guide to selecting the appropriate open source license for your project, understanding license implications, and avoiding common pitfalls

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Engineering Leadership: Interview with Tech Lead

An in-depth conversation with Sarah Chen, Principal Engineer and Tech Lead, about technical leadership, team dynamics, architectural decision-making, and growing engineers into senior roles.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

OWASP Top 10: Prevention Strategies

Comprehensive guide to preventing the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities with practical code examples and security controls for web applications

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Cloud Migration Strategies for Legacy Systems

Proven strategies for migrating legacy enterprise systems to the cloud with minimal disruption and maximum benefits

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Building an Incident Response Playbook

Create a comprehensive incident response playbook with detection, containment, eradication, and recovery procedures - complete with runbooks and automation templates.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Code Review Best Practices for Engineering Teams

Master the art of code reviews that improve code quality, share knowledge, and build team culture. Learn what to look for, how to give feedback, and how to structure reviews for maximum impact.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

How We Reduced Infrastructure Costs by 60%

A detailed case study of our infrastructure cost optimization journey, covering rightsizing, architectural changes, and operational improvements that cut our monthly cloud spend from $150K to $60K.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Finding the Right Open Source Project to Contribute To

Discover how to identify and evaluate open source projects that align with your skills, interests, and career goals for meaningful contributions

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Cloudflare Mcp Server: Cloudflare MCP Server

Cloudflare MCP Server

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

N8n Mcp Server: A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides seamless integration with the n8n API. Manage your n8n workflows, executions, and credentials through natural language using Claude AI.

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides seamless integration with the n8n API. Manage your n8n workflows, executions, and credentials through natural language using Claude AI.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Proxmox Mcp Server: MCP server for managing Proxmox Virtual Environment VMs, containers, storage, and cluster resources

MCP server for managing Proxmox Virtual Environment VMs, containers, storage, and cluster resources

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Starlink Enterprise Mcp Server: MCP server for managing Starlink terminal fleet through the Starlink Enterprise API

MCP server for managing Starlink terminal fleet through the Starlink Enterprise API

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Unifi Cloudflare Ddns: Cloudflare Worker enabling UniFi devices to dynamically update DNS A/AAAA records

Cloudflare Worker enabling UniFi devices to dynamically update DNS A/AAAA records

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Multi-Factor Authentication Implementation Guide

Comprehensive guide to implementing MFA in modern applications, covering TOTP, SMS, biometric authentication, and recovery mechanisms

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Writing Great README Files

Master the art of writing clear, compelling README files that help users understand and adopt your open source project effectively

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Open Source Contributions: 2025 Retrospective

Looking back at a year of open source contributions, community engagement, and lessons learned from maintaining projects, reviewing pull requests, and supporting contributors worldwide.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

Enterprise Service Bus vs API Gateway

Comparing Enterprise Service Bus and API Gateway patterns for enterprise integration, understanding when to use each approach

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Unifi Grafana Streamer: Real-time UniFi event streaming to Grafana via MCP

Real-time UniFi event streaming to Grafana via MCP

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

The Rise of Edge Computing in 2025

Exploring how edge computing became mainstream in 2025, driven by AI workloads, real-time applications, and data sovereignty requirements that demand processing closer to users and devices.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Best Practices for Open Source Project Maintainers

Essential strategies and practices for effectively maintaining open source projects, from code reviews to community management and sustainable growth

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Unifi Mcp Server: Model Context Protocol server for comprehensive UniFi infrastructure monitoring and management with A2A support

Model Context Protocol server for comprehensive UniFi infrastructure monitoring and management with A2A support

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

GDPR Compliance for SaaS Applications

A comprehensive guide to implementing GDPR compliance in SaaS platforms, covering data protection, user rights, and regulatory requirements

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

SOLID Principles in Modern Software Development

A practical guide to applying SOLID principles in modern codebases. Learn how these foundational design principles create maintainable, scalable software that stands the test of time.

Ryan Dahlberg
Enterprise software

OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect Implementation Guide

A comprehensive guide to implementing OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect for secure authentication and authorization in modern applications

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Service Mesh: Istio vs Linkerd - Choosing the Right Solution

A comprehensive comparison of Istio and Linkerd service meshes, exploring their architectures, performance characteristics, and ideal use cases.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Understanding Neural Network Backpropagation: The Math Behind the Magic

A comprehensive deep-dive into backpropagation, the algorithm that powers neural network training. From gradient descent fundamentals to practical implementation, explore how networks learn from their mistakes.

Ryan Dahlberg
News & insights

Cortex Q4 2025 Feature Release Summary

A comprehensive overview of new features, improvements, and capabilities shipped in Cortex during Q4 2025, including enhanced orchestration, improved observability, and expanded integration options.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

Microservices vs Monoliths: When to Use Each

A practical guide to choosing between microservices and monolithic architectures based on team size, scale requirements, and operational maturity.

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Building RAG Systems with Vector Databases

A comprehensive guide to building production-ready Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems using vector databases, semantic search, and LLM integration patterns.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

JWT Best Practices and Common Pitfalls

Essential security practices for implementing JSON Web Tokens, covering signing algorithms, token storage, and common vulnerabilities to avoid

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Test-Driven Development in Practice: Writing Tests That Matter

Learn how to apply Test-Driven Development effectively in real-world scenarios. From writing your first failing test to refactoring with confidence, discover the practical strategies that make TDD work.

Ryan Dahlberg
Developer skills

Performance Profiling and Optimization Workflows

Master the art of performance profiling with systematic workflows, practical tools, and real-world optimization strategies. Learn how to identify bottlenecks, measure impact, and deliver measurable performance improvements.

Ryan Dahlberg
Engineering

REST API Design Best Practices: Building APIs That Stand the Test of Time

A comprehensive guide to designing robust, scalable, and maintainable REST APIs. Learn the principles, patterns, and practical techniques that separate great APIs from merely functional ones.

Ryan Dahlberg
Open Source

Your First Open Source Contribution: A Step-by-Step Guide

A comprehensive guide for developers making their first contribution to open source projects, covering everything from finding issues to submitting pull requests

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

Advanced Prompt Patterns for Complex Tasks

Deep dive into sophisticated prompt engineering patterns for tackling multi-step reasoning, hierarchical task decomposition, and complex problem-solving with large language models.

Ryan Dahlberg
Security

Shifting Security Left in CI/CD Pipelines

Comprehensive guide to integrating security early in the development lifecycle with automated scanning, SAST, DAST, and security gates in CI/CD pipelines

Ryan Dahlberg
AI & ML

DriveIQ: AI-Powered Vehicle Management for Your Toyota 4Runner

Track maintenance, set reminders, and consult your vehicle manual with AI assistance. DriveIQ brings intelligent vehicle management to your 2018 Toyota 4Runner SR5 Premium.

Ryan Dahlberg
Built by ry-ops

Meet Cortex

A completely autonomous AI orchestration system with unlimited parallel execution and real-time observability. Scales from 1 to 10,000+ specialized agents on-demand.