About

A notebook about operating small systems, kept by one person who is on call for them.

I run a handful of services for a few dozen people: a couple of web apps, a handful of scheduled jobs, and the usual supporting pieces around them. This site is where I write down the parts of that work that are hard to remember — how a latency budget was split, why a cache key is shaped the way it is, what we decided not to fix after an incident.

The notes are written for my future self first. If they are useful to someone else, that is a bonus. They are not tutorials, and they assume a working familiarity with Linux, HTTP, and the idea that a pager will eventually go off at an inconvenient time.

What this is not

• Not a company blog. There is no product behind it.
• Not sponsored, and there are no affiliate links.
• Not a feed of news. If a note is posted, it is because I needed to write it down.
• Not a place to ask for support. I do not run services for readers.

Corrections

When a note turns out to be wrong, I edit it in place and add a line at the bottom saying what changed and when. There is no comments section; the archive is the record.

Colophon

The site is hand-written HTML and one stylesheet. Details are on the colophon page.