Stop Writing Git Commits: How AI-Powered GitKraken CLI Accelerates Your Development

As developers, we're constantly looking for tools that can help us stay in the flow and be more productive. Today, I want to share a powerful tool that's been gaining traction in the developer community: GitKraken CLI. This command-line interface brings together several key features that modern developers love - it's AI-powered, terminal-based, and incredibly efficient for managing Git workflows.

(Version française ici)

What Makes GitKraken CLI Special?

GitKraken CLI (accessible via the gk command) stands out because it simplifies complex Git workflows while adding intelligent automation. Unlike traditional Git commands, it provides a more intuitive workflow management system that can handle multiple repositories simultaneously.

Getting Started

Installation is straightforward. On Windows, you can install it using:

winget install gitkraken.cli

Once installed, you'll have access to the gk command, which becomes your gateway to streamlined Git operations.

The Workflow in Action

Let's walk through a typical development session using GitKraken CLI:

1. Starting a Work Session

Instead of manually creating branches and switching contexts, you can start a focused work session:

gk w start "Add Behind my Cloud feed" -i "Add Behind my Cloud feed #1"

This single command:

• Creates a new branch based on your issue/feature name
• Switches to that branch automatically
• Links the work session to a specific issue
• Sets up your development environment for focused work

2. Managing Multiple Work Sessions

You can easily see all your active work sessions:

gk w list

This is particularly powerful when working across multiple repositories or juggling several features simultaneously.

3. Committing with Intelligence

After making your changes, adding files works as expected:

gk add .

But here's where the AI magic happens. Instead of writing commit messages manually:

gk w commit --ai

The AI analyzes your changes and generates meaningful, descriptive commit messages automatically. No more "quick fix" or "update stuff" commits!

4. Pushing and Creating Pull Requests

Publishing your work is equally streamlined:

gk w push

And when you're ready to create a pull request:

gk w pr create --ai

Again, AI assistance helps generate appropriate PR titles and descriptions based on your work.

5. Wrapping Up

Once your work is complete and merged, clean up is simple:

gk w end

This command:

• Switches you back to the main branch
• Deletes the feature branch, locally and on GitHub
• Closes the work session
• Leaves your repository clean and ready for the next task

Why This Matters

The beauty of GitKraken CLI lies in its ability to keep you in the zone. You don't need to:

• Switch between multiple tools
• Remember complex Git commands
• Write commit messages from scratch
• Manually manage branch lifecycle

Everything flows naturally from one command to the next, maintaining your focus on what matters most: writing code.

Multi-Repository Power

One of the standout features is GitKraken CLI's ability to manage multiple repositories simultaneously. This is invaluable for:

• Microservices architectures
• Full-stack applications with separate frontend/backend repos
• Organizations with multiple related projects

Try It Yourself

GitKraken CLI is part of a broader suite of developer tools that GitKraken offers. The CLI itself is free to use, which makes it easy to experiment with and integrate into your workflow without any upfront commitment. If you find value in the CLI and want to explore their other tools, GitKraken has various products that might complement your development setup.

The learning curve is genuinely minimal since it builds on Git concepts you already know while adding helpful automation. I've found that even small workflow improvements can compound over time, especially when you're working on multiple projects or dealing with frequent context switching.

If you're curious about what else GitKraken offers beyond the CLI, you can explore their full product lineup here. For those who decide the Pro features would benefit their workflow, as an ambassador of GitKraken I can share my code to provide a 50% discount for your GitKraken Pro subscription.

The combination of AI assistance and intuitive commands addresses real pain points that many developers face daily. Whether GitKraken CLI becomes a core part of your toolkit will depend on your specific workflow, but it's worth trying given that it's free and takes just a few minutes to set up.

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The best tools are the ones that get out of your way and let you focus on building. GitKraken CLI aims to do exactly that.

Reading Notes #651

Welcome to another edition of my reading notes! This week brings some fascinating insights into AI's real-world impact, exciting developments in .NET and containerization, plus practical tools for improving our development workflows. 

From local AI-powered code reviews to Docker security hardening and the upcoming .NET 10 features, there's plenty to explore.

 

AI

• The promise that wasn’t kept (Salma Alam Maylor) - Interesting thoughts about AI and its impact on our work but also on our life, and the planet.

• Local code review with Docker and smollm2 before pushing to git (Gerardo Lopez) - This is a really cool idea! I'll have to try it.

Programming

• Converting a docker-compose file to .NET Aspire (Andrew Lock) - Cool experiment. I must say I did the same thing, and I encourage you to do it too!

• Inside GitHub: How we hardened our SAML implementation (Greg Ose, Taylor Reis) - Very interesting post that pushes the curtain a little bit so we could see behind the scene how this very used but notification system works and has been updated

• Announcing dotnet run app.cs - A simpler way to start with C# and .NET 10 - .NET Blog (Damian Edwards) - That's a really cool new feature (that we can test in C# preview), It will be so useful in automation!

Cloud

• Introducing Docker Hardened Images: Secure, Minimal, and Ready for Production (Michael Donovan, Nikhil Kaul) - Security is the concern of everyone. I like this idea of like more secure but still flexible container images. Have a look and see for yourself

• Podman vs. Docker: Containerization Tools Comparison (James Walker) - A nice post that explains the difference at a high level. This isn't a command-to-command comparison, but more scenarios and performance.

Miscellaneous

• Enhance productivity with AI + Remote Dev (Brigit Murtaugh, Christof Marti, Josh Spicer, Olivia Guzzardo McVicker) - I love the dev container environments, they are so useful! And I also use the remote one when I'm not on my dev device so easy. Happy to see that Copilot will be right there with me.

~frank

Reading Notes #650

It's time for another edition of Reading Notes! This week brings exciting developments in the open source world, with major announcements from Microsoft making WSL and VS Code's AI features open source. We've also got updates on Azure Container Apps, .NET Aspire, and some great insights on developer productivity tools.

 

Let's dive into these interesting reads that caught my attention this week.

Cloud

• Happy 5th Birthday Bicep! (Sam Cogan) - What?! Five years already! That's incredible, I remember all the discussion about how we make our business better and honestly, bicep is a big success. Congrats to the team

• Have I Been Pwned 2.0 is Now Live! (Troy Hunt) - New look, new merch, and confetti, all without API breaking changes! Learn all about this major update in this post.

• Announcing Workflow in Azure Container Apps with the Durable task scheduler – Now in Preview! (greenie) - Exciting news about a new service. It looks solid and perfect for integration scenarios. Looking forward to experimenting with it.

Programming

• Pushing a whole stack of branches with a single Git command (Andrew Lock) - I'm always amazed to learn how people use git. This post shares a very smart way to push clear feature in multiple branches

• What's new in .NET Aspire 9.3 (David Pine) - Wow! How so many great new features can be added in a single version?! Aspire is a must for all .NET developers.

• Accelerate Your .NET Upgrades with GitHub Copilot (McKenna Barlow) - That's the tool I've been waiting for ages! Adding a Copilot to the extension is the smartest move they could make. I'm going to update an app right away. I'll share more later

Open Source

• Edit is now open source (Christopher Nguyen) - That's a great news! I installed it half through the post and it great! Fast, simple, and tiny!! Love it!

• The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source (Pierre Boulay) - And another project that turns out to be open source, I love it, it's just fantasti,c read all the details and dispose

• VS Code: Open Source AI Editor (VS Code team) - I strongly believe in open source. Very happy to see this change!

AI

• Agent mode for every developer (Katie Savage) - Great new for everyone as the agent mode become available in so many different editor. This post also contains videos to shows some scenarios.

Podcasts

• Reimagining the Windows Terminal with Warp's Zach Lloyd (Scott Hanselman) - A very interesting talk with the CEO of Warp that answers so many questions I had about this very different terminal. Really interesting episode, and terminal too BTW)

• The power of empathy in leadership with Jerry Colonna (Macmillan Holdings, LLC) - This very interesting episode is about the power of empathy in leadership.

• 362. Maximal Fitness with Minimum Time with Ben Greenfield (Part 1) (Greg McKeown) - Interesting conversation with a triathlete about different ways to train and nutrition

Miscellaneous

• The experience is enough (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Whether we like it or not, we are people creature. We all need to stop hiding behind our screens and get out there!

~frank

Reading Notes #645

Welcome to this week's reading notes! I've found some great articles that caught my eye - from security tips for MCP servers to exciting updates in Rust and AI. Whether you're into cloud services, programming tools, or wondering about the future of coding with AI, there's something here for you.

Let's dive in!

 

Programming

• The Aspire Compiler (David Fowler) - I really appreciate Aspire. It's one of the tools that completely changed my experience as a developer. Learning more about it is, without a doubt, interesting.

• Verifying tricky git rebases with git range-diff (Andrew Lock) - Is it possible to really master Git? There is always something new to learn. Nice post going deep.

• Azure SDK for Rust Goes Beta (Nikos Vaggalis ) - Great news for the Rust developer, this is an important milestone.

AI

• Calling MCP Servers in C# with Microsoft.Extensions.AI (Mark Heath) - Many options, new tools, fresh possibilities, it's only missing our ideas.

• If LLMs Can Code, Why Are We Building More IDEs? (Mark Downie) - That's an excellent question, and I agree with Mark.

• Understanding and mitigating security risks in MCP implementations (Sarah Young) - The MCP servers are opening many opportunities, and it's important to know the risk. This post is a must.

• Build MCP Remote Servers with Azure Functions (Matt Soucoup) - A quick post that shows how a serverless MCP server can be hosted Azure and be secure; all code included.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #632

In this edition of ReadingNotes, we explore some fascinating topics in the world of cloud computing, programming, and AI. From integrating images with AI in C# to the latest updates in Git, there's something for everyone. Plus, don't miss out on insights into effective developer relations and a deep dive into a new AI agent for Docker. 

Enjoy the read!

Cloud

• Passing images to LLMs in C# with Microsoft.Extensions.AI (Mark Heath) - This a cool demo that shows us how to add images to our conversations with our AI

Programming

• Highlights from Git 2.48 (Taylor Blau) - A nice update with many new features and bug fixes. There are 93 contributors to this update. It's pretty impressive.

AI

• Meet Gordon: An AI Agent for Docker (Christopher Petito) - Oh! I like those specialized AI! One thing that could be nice is Docker could make accessible an Ask Gordon plugin that other AI like Copilot could use.

Miscellaneous

• How to be a Ghostbuster (Sean Killeen) - So many! I guess I knew it was possible that some, and I mean A very few exceptions but so many people and so little work!

• Defining paths to business value in Developer Relations (Salma Alam-Naylor) - As always, a very well-thought post about developer relationships (devrel) and how I can be useful for the business.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share 

~frank

Reading Notes #619

It's reading notes time! It is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

You also read something you liked? Share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Easily dock and float tool windows (Mads Kristensen) - Oh my! One of the best post I read since a long time. It cannot me more accurate, funny, nor useful.

Programming

• DevOps for Beginners: A Complete Roadmap to Get Started (Harshhaa Vardhan Reddy) - This post is a really good overview of DevOps. If your are interested to he topic but don't know where to start,that one is for you.

• How to Build Frontend Apps 10x Faster (Anmol Baranwal) - An interesting tools that you install that act as middle man and helps while developing and testing.

• Switch Branches in Git Without Losing Your Work (Asad Bukhari) - Quick little tip to save time with Git.

• Incorporate GitHub Copilot into your daily flow (Rhea,Sinem,Mika) - Copilot go more accessible!This post summarizes how Copilot will be easier to use with suggested code. That's a good example of product feedback well used, everybody wins!

• 5 Must-Have NuGet Packages for .NET Developers: Elevate Your Code! (Ken Fedorov) - Nice post that shares indeed useful packages.

• GitHub Models and .NET: Building Generative AI apps for engineers (April Yoho) - Very easy to use and accessible, those AI models are perfect for developers. GitHub successfully removed many blockers that aloud a fast onboarding experience.

• Semantic Kernel - Multi agent systems (Bart Wullems) - Nice quick post with a lot of to code to helps understand the concept.

~Frank

Reading Notes #599

It's reading notes time! It is a habit I started a long time ago, close to 600 weeks ago in fact, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

Having interesting content? Share it!

    

Cloud

• Configure Azure Functions to use Identity Based Connections (Mark Heath) - this is a great post that explains really well in detail how to migrate from using a connection string to using identity from the infrastructure to the code

Programming

• Self-hosting on a Raspberry Pi cluster (Savannah Ostrowski) - Super cool post that explains how she did it. It make me want to have a PI cluster too!

• Syncing a git branch between Windows and WSL filesystems (Andrew Lock) - It's true that by habit or reflex most people will think of Git as centralized... But it's not! Once you understand that so many possibilities are available. This post both summarize that and shows and example.

Low Code

• Testing Your Native AOT Applications - .NET Blog (Marco Rossignoli, Jakub Jareš, Jakub Chocholowicz) - With code ahead-of-time (AOT) we still need tests but how to do it with that stripped version. of .NET? This short tutorial shows how.

Podcasts

• Richard Lander: Containerization and Linux - Episode 289 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Really interesting episode about the progress and the current state of .NET.

• Modular Monoliths in .NET with Steve Smith (.NET Rocks!) - In this era of micro services it's not often that someone talk about monoliths, but maybe we should.

Miscellaneous

• How to automate tasks in Windows (David Nield) - Seeing things getting done by some automation you built is a nice feelingThis short post introduces 4 tools that will get you started with automation.

~Frank

Reading Notes #597

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Suggestion of the week

• Building Interactive Blazor Apps with WebAssembly (Ed Charbeneau) - Wow! A very well crafted tutorial that guides us, while explaining why we need to do what we're are doing at each steps.

Cloud

• Azure Spring Clean: Leveraging Azure Copilot To Better Manage Your Tenant (Sam Cogan) - It's always a good idea to do a tour of our resources in the cloud to see what's there. With that new AI assistant it will be easier to ask questions when we are not sure how to search.

Programming

• Blazor WebAssembly Virtual File System Access (Michael Washington) - A nice tutorial the show us how to keep file (aka data) in the browser of the visitor. All the code is available.

• ASP.NET Core Basics: Organize Projects—Architectural Patterns (Assis Zang) - Architecture helps us to have clear and easy to maintain code. And this is what is ready important. Besides that the code need to do what we want, obviously.

• Automate Your GitHub Workflow with Bash Scripting (arjun) - Remember, everything is scriptable...

• Blazor Render Mode – How To Avoid Dependency Injection Woes (Nick Cosentino) - Failing is learning. In this post the author shares why is Blazor app wasn't behaving as he expect and what he did to fix it.

Open Source

• My new open-source repository to schedule all your content! (Nevo David) - This post shares what look like a fantastic scheduling tool, I'll have to try this project definitely useful

Miscellaneous

• Starting CockroachDB in Single User Mode with a Dockerfile (Bryan Hogan) - I really believe that database in a container is the best option for many developers. Here a simple example with cockroachDB.

~frank

Reading Notes #587

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Backing up files to Azure blob storage with azcopy (Andrew Lock) - A very interesting solution to a situation we are all facing. Nice to see the OSS project (I didn't know that one) and smart way to use Azure.

Low Code

• Building your own copilot – yes, but how? (Part 1 of 2) (Carlotta Castelluccio) - This is a cool tutorial to build a Copilot codeless style.If you prefer code style watch for part two coming soon.

Programming

• Structuring a Clean Architecture Folder (Adrián Bailador Panero) - Nice quick overview of the folder structure.

• Git Lesson: How to Use .gitignore and .gitkeep? (Rita Lyczywek) - Two important files indeed when using Git.

• Cookies vs Session Storage vs Local Storage (Royal Jain) - Clear post that explains the purpose and differences between 3 useful tools.

• 14 Things To Check Before Deploying a Website 👨‍💻🔥 (Arjun Vijay Prakash) - Quick sanity check before publishing.... It is always a good idea.

• Difference between CultureInfo.Get and new CultureInfo - Gérald Barré (Gérald Barré) - Short post how performance tip with cultureInfo.

• Simpler auth for Blazor Web Apps with Auth0? (Jon Hilton) - A wonderful tutorial very well detailed that explains how to use Auth0 with Blazor server app and search some gotchas so our experience goes smoother.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Communication Services January 2024 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - Improved management and a new data channel, great updates to start the year with a bang!

~Frank

Reading Notes #580

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - November 2023 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - So many feature in this CLI, I really need to look into it!
  
  
  

Programming

• Unlocking Git’s Power with GitLens: A Visual Studio Code Extension Guide (Sarah Lean) - Great quick intro and nice video about GitLens. It's one of those tool that you didn't know it but once you do, you can't imagine how you could live without it before.

• Introducing v1.0.0 Beta6 for the .NET Semantic Kernel SDK (Matthew Bolanos) - Sementic Kernel is a pretty cool tool.

• Explaining Kubernetes To My Uber Driver (Jessica Wang) - Pretty cool story that explains in a comprehensible way what is Kubernetes and why it is useful.

• Where fetch data in your Blazor components (Jon Hilton) - Having a optimization strategy is important.This post is a good place to start when using Blazor.

• .NET MAUI on Linux with Visual Studio Code (Bruno Capuano) - This is pretty interesting! Instead of having a Windows vm on my Linux laptop I could run natively ...I'll need to try that!

Miscellaneous

• Announcing Microsoft Copilot Studio (Jared Spataro, C) - Copilot Studio was for sure one of the big announcement during Microsoft Ignite. Learn more about what it is, what it does, and how you can get it in this post.

~frank

It's Time To Ditch your USB Keys

On day 2 of GitKon 2023, I presented a short beginner-friendly introduction to Git without using any "command lines". Too many are still using USB keys today to share files and collaborate on documents. When asked why they don't use Git, the answer is most likely that it's too complicated, too technical, and too much work.

Here is the good news, it doesn't need to be! This video shares the why and how Git is for everyone and share simple tips to make the how accessible!

It's now available on-demand. 🐙

Useful Links

• GitKon 2023
• Visual Studio Code
• GitKraken
• Foundations of Git - Certification Course
• Introduction to version control with Git.

Reading Notes #578

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Wolverine and Serverless (Jeremy d Miller) - The secrets is in the details! Wolverine is good with persistent environment, learn how to fine-tune it so its also good in short live (aka serverless) environment.

• What Is Open Source's Role in Platform Engineering? (Pete Lilley) - This post why should we spend time learning platform engineering.

Programming

• Introduction to Git, GitHub, and Version Control​ workshop-o-matic Library () - Git is a powerful tool.This post share a bit of what it is how it works and talk about other source control.

• Creating Animated Login UI in .NET MAUI with Lottie (John Aziz) - Nice post that shows how to make good looking login screen with animation. Because with does it need to be plain?!

• Docker Desktop 4.25: Enhancements to Docker Desktop on Windows, Rosetta for Linux GA, and New Docker Scout Image Analysis Settings (Mihaela Stoica) - Woot woot! Nice performance improvement... Congrats to the team.

• How to Determine URL a Local Git Repository was Originally Cloned From (Chris Pietschmann) - Neat tips and its simple.

Podcasts

• Defining a Database with Tony Baer (Screaming in the Cloud) - I was smiling all along that episode. It's such a great question! There a so many variation of databases these days and different data sources!
• 66. Developing critical thinking skills and choosing different technologies - with Laïla Bougriâ (Betatalks the podcast) - Whatever it's a new project, the middle of it, or the refactoring of an old one, communication ans sharing the information is so important. And listening too! Nice episode.
• Failing Well with Dr. Amy Edmondson (A Bit of Optimism) - It's all about how we can change our relationship with failures and start “failing well”. I like that! She's the author of Right Kind of Wrong, a new addition to my to-read stack.
• J. Tower: Modernization Strangler Fig Pattern - Episode 263 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - Modernization could seams simple... right? But it's not! There are many traps. There many challenges that are waiting for you and you need to to the things for the right reasons. Nice episode.

Miscellaneous

• Discover What's New in PowerToys v0.75.0: Environment Variables, Peek Updates, and More (Kunal Chowdhury) - Oh wow! A lot of pretty cool updates, I need to try the environment variables editor...

~ Frank Boucher

Reading Notes #564

Monday! It is time to share my reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

 

Cloud

• How To: Remote Debug a Deployed Azure Function using Visual Studio 2022 (Jamie Maguire) - Because sometimes the only solution is to debug live from the cloud. It's great that it's possible.

• Enabling Azure Application Insights for an App Service (David Giard) - It's one of those tools it's right there and you didn't know you couldn't live without until you try it and you get all that information.

DevOps

• Modifying Docker images during Kubernetes deployments (Matthew Casperson) - This is a very detailed tutorial that helps and explains clearly each step of that deployment pipeline.

Programming

• Tech Notes: Quick hacks on GitHub Pages (Evan Martin) - Nice git tricks.

• Debugging distributed systems is hard! (Dennis Frühauff) - This is a very nice post that explains clearly a situation. How many of us have been in this situation before where you try to debug a system and it's just so hard?

• Healthcare and Life Sciences Blog (Kyle Raymond) - This is a cool tutorial/ example that explains what is and how to use semantic Kernel.

Data

• Speeding up Queries with Materialized Views (Derek Comartin) - Great post that will inspire us on how to get the best performance for our databases.

~Frank

Reading Notes #560

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

The suggestion of the week

• GitHub Copilot Fundamentals Learning Path - Your New AI programming friend! (Bruno Capuano ) - A free series of lessons to get to know how to use Copilot ( an AI partner application).

Cloud

• Azure Communication Services June 2023 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - A series of pretty cool new features from Azure communication services.

Low Code

• Power Apps Dataverse Offline Mode For Canvas Apps (Matthew Devaney) - This is a nice step-by-step tutorial that guides us to make our Apps offline capable.

Programming

• Should We Use Records With EF Core as Model Classes? (Code Maze ) - Fantastic post that not only explains how Records could be used with EF but also explains why they aren't always the best choice.

• Best Practices for Building Secure Micro Frontends (Grgur Grisogono) - Nice short post about security best practices.Because it's important everywhere and its the job of everyone.

• How to Start an Open Source Project with VS Code (Bekah) - This is a nice and simple tutorial that overviews how to get started.

Miscellaneous

• Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Is Betting Everything on AI (Steven Levy) - A great interview with a focus on AI technology.

~Frank

Reading Notes #559

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Programming

• The Git repository that vanished by Mark Seemann (Mark Seemann) - I love it! I really enjoy those investigation posts, I think we learn more in those. Thank you for sharing it!

• Creating RESTful APIs with Minimal APIs and Entity Framework Core in ASP.NET (Bruno Sonnino) - Fast way to build an API meet efficiency to talk to the database!

• Demystifying WebAssembly: What Beginners Need to Know (Robert Kimani) - Wasm is a great addition to your toolbox. This post explains what makes it different and goes over the pros and cons.

• How to use plugins with Semantic Kernel | Semantic Kernel (Nilesh Acharya) - Short tutorial that helps us with a ready-to-try sample.

Databases

• Kusto Emulator on Linux (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Great announcement! Faster and smaller perfect for us!

Miscellaneous

• Power Apps is empowering coders with next-generation AI capabilities (Ryan Cunningham) - Looking forward to using that AI to do the little repetitive thing in Power platforms.

~Frank

Reading Notes #553

It is time to share new reading notes. It is a habit I started a long time ago where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Programming

• Smoother rebases with auto-squashing Git commits (Andrew Lock) - Git is a very powerful tool, it worth make do the thing the way you like them.

• Accelerate API Development in Visual Studio with .http/.rest Files! (Dirk Strauss) - Nice integration to Visual Studio.That way we can have less software up and running while coding.

• Let's Learn .NET Virtual Events - All Around the World - .NET Blog (Matt Soucoup) - Super cool events to get started with Azure using .NET and the best of it in many different timezones or languages!!

LowCode

• Low-code signals 2023 (Richard Riley) - Interesting post that shares numbers related to the growth of low-code practice.

• Power Apps PDF Function: Create, View & Download PDFs (Matthew Devaney) - A nice cool app with a lot of features!

Miscellaneous

• I'm a former Microsoft VP of HR. Here are the real reasons why layoffs are happening and how much longer they'll last. (Chris Williams ) - Interesting post that explains what this layoff season is really about.

~frank

Reading Notes #542

Cloud

• Adventures in Dapr: Episode 1 - Azure Service Bus (James Dawson) - In this post the author switch the pub sub service and it looks so simple. Interesting.

• Adventures in Dapr: Episode 0 - Introduction (James Dawson) - This first post of the series provides us details about the plans and why Dapr seams interesting as a resource for this project.

• Azure Communication Services February 2023 Feature Updates (Daysha Carter) - Happy to see the new release coming up packed with useful features and capability.

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - February 2023 Release (Savannah Ostrowski) - Wow! The Dev CLI is kicking the new year with a big release. New templates on many languages and new features.

• General availability: Mount Azure Storage as a local share in App Service Windows Code (Unknown) - Important milestone reached. Congrats!

Programming

• A Fancy Hover Effect For Your Avatar (Temani Afif) - Wow! From my point of views this look loke magic. With only one HTML element and a few lines of CSS... Bravo!

• Blazor and Azure OpenAI (Michael Washington) - Cool demo using OpenAI API. Because yes ChatGPT is fun but there are APIs to build real apps.

• How to use Entity Framework Core in ASP.NET Core (Khalid Abuhakmeh) - This is a very nice tutorial that guides us each steps along the way. Clear detailed, very nice.

• Merging Git repositories without losing history (Dennis Doomen) - Great tutorial that not only provides the solution but explains step by steps why we do each of them.

Podcasts

• 341: Frank Masters In-App Subscriptions (Merge Conflict) - A big thank you to Frank and James for sharing that journey. We too often only ear about the happy path, and it's great to listen to all those challenges you incountered and how you managed to move forward.
• Embracing The Fall with Carla Hall (A Bit of Optimism) - YES! So true! Falling instead of failling. Like a very wise man told me long time ago, the important is to bounce; get back on your feet and standup.
• Alice and Bob Learn App Security with Tanya Janca (.NET Rocks!) - Great great episode with the amazing Tanya. Looking forward for that next book!
• 49. Using Azure Container Apps, KEDA, Infrastructure as Code and ARM - with Eduard Keilholz (Betatalks the podcast) - From the MVP stories, to the infrastructure as code with the detour around the bulletproof demo or candies... This episode is indeed like a delicious candy.

~Frank

Reading Notes #522

Yep! It's Monday again :) 

 Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Introduction to DevSecOps on Azure (Daniel Krzyczkowski) - DevSecOps is a real thing and it's accessible for all. This post explains what it is and provides examples of how it could be implemented at a high level.

• Using Azure CLI Authentication within Local Containers (James Dawson) - This post provides two very useful workarounds with WSL and docker to a difficulty we might encounter while using a different platform.

Programming

• #RaspberryPi – Install raspi-config on Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Bruno Capuano) - A short post that shows how to get Unbuntu 22.02 on your Pi.

• Adding color to bracket pairs (Mads Kristensen) - A call for feedback on an up common feature of Visual Studio. Rainbow Brackets yes it will colorize the brackets but what should be the options?

• Browser Extension with Blazor WASM - Cross-Browser Compatibility (Justin Yoo) - Nice post in a series that really shows in the details and explains how to use the extension.

• DevOps monitoring: The Why, What, and How of DevOps monitoring (Hiren Dhaduk) - This is an excellent post to get us to think about our first step. It explains the reason why we should care and briefly lists a few tools available today on the market to help.

• Get started with NDepend: Uncle Bob and the Zone of Pain (Dennis) - A nice article that explains how to get started with NDepends.

• Rewrite your git history in 4 friendly commands (Salma Alam-Naylor) - The git trick of the week for when you want to do a major cleaning.

• Working with System.Random and threads safely in .NET Core and .NET Framework (Andrew Lock) - Interesting post about Random numbers in .NET.

Podcasts

• 38. Open source framework MVVM Light, Azure Static Web Apps & timekeeper.cloud with Laurent Bugnion (Betatalks the podcast) - Cool episode about, well my friend! :)
• How to be a great (new!) leader (Modern Mentor) - Really interesting episode for new leaders/ influencers.

~frank

Reading Notes #521

Good Monday, 

Already time to share new reading notes. Here is a list of all the articles, and blog posts that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• No-code Automation for Azure Boards Using Azure Logic Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents (Jason Hand) - You have so many options to watch this workshop. The bite-sized videos will teach you how to be more efficient with Azure DevOps without any code.

• Extending Docker’s Integration with containerd (Djordje Lukic) - Docker team shares the roadmap for their adoption of containers as basic components in image management. Learn more about it and how you can try it today in this post.

• How to Change an Azure Function Written in .NET from In-Process to Isolated Process (Nick) - Great post that from scratch create a regular Azure Function into Visual Studio publish it and then quickly migrate it to an Isolated one.

Programming

• .NET MAUI Cloud Skills Challenge - Learn .NET MAUI, Get Stickers! (Matt Soucoup) - This is a really interesting cloud challenge. With .NET MAUI I could build apps for mobile and desktop...

• 3 ways every company can get started with an open-source software strategy (Ashley Wolf) - Open source can be so much and it is normal to not understand all of it at the beginning. This nice post answer a few questions for enterprises who would like to start.

• Announcing built-in container support for the .NET SDK (Chet Husk) - After the .NET included in Ubuntu a few days ago, now simplistic containerization has so many great new tools and opportunities.

• Getting Started With TypeScript and React (Ifeoma Imoh) - This is a nice tutorial to get started.

• How I made an ai to watch my cats poop for me (Estefannie) - Great project using Raspberry Pi, node, C, and a lot of creativity. The video is a must, it provides a better overview of the journey, and the story is gold.

• Merging two GitHub repositories without losing commit history (Schalk Neethling) - Nice work documenting this flow. Keeping as much information as possible is often very important. A post to bookmark for later use.

• No more Dockerfiles with the help of .NET CLI (Christian Nagel) - Interesting stuff coming up in .NET 7 that we can experiment today.

Podcasts

• 588: How to Help Your Manager Shine, with David Gergen (Coaching for Leaders) - Interesting discussion about how to help your manager with a very special guest. David Gergen is the author of Hearts Touched With Fire, and talks about the importance of the relationship between a manager and a direct report.

Miscellaneous

• How to Colorize Pictures With OpenVINO™ on Ubuntu Containers (Valentin Viennot) - This very complete post shares the realization of a kubernetes and docker project with all the required details so we could give it a try.

~frank

Reading Notes #517

Good Thursday, 

back from a nice time off, I'm all recharged and it's time to share new ReadingNotes. Here is a list of all the articles, podcasts, and blog posts, that catch my interest during the week. 

If you think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Controlling Blazor Environments on Static Web Apps | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - This is a very neet tip; short and simple.
• Host your website on Azure Static Web Apps for free (Julia Muiruri) - There you have it, two different sets of three-step to get your Azure static web app.
• How to deploy a Local Docker Container to Azure Container Apps (Vincent Nwonah) - An excellent tutorial to get started with Azure Container App.
• Ultimate Guide to Deploying Azure App Service WebJobs Using Azure DevOps (Wael Kdouh) - Wow! This post has so many little time-saver tips (aka gotchas). Great content.

Programming

• Git-Flow, GitHub-Flow, Gitlab-Flow and Trunk Based Development explained (Steven Giesel) - This is a nice post to see different alternatives for your Git pattern
• Keys to Effective Regression Test Development (Amy Reichert) - This post shares a lot of info about test planning and structure. A nice read to get inspired and learn more on the topic.

Podcasts

• Rust for Beginners with Nell Shamrell-Harrington (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - I'm studently craving to learn Rust thanks to Scott and Nell in this episode Rust for Beginners
• 315: A Proper Podcast (Merge Conflict) - Fun episode about Frank's and James' personal life.
• How to have a hard conversation (Modern Mentor) - Those moments are hard and I believe we can all benefice from a few tips to prepare ourselves.
• 0267 - Serge Tremblay - Microsoft Loop (Visual Studio Talk Show) - (In French) Microsoft Loop?! If you have the same reaction as me when reading this title, then this episode is for you. A nice episode where three friends talk about new technology.
• Steve Sanderson: The future of Blazor and WebAssembly - Episode 202 (Azure DevOps Podcast) - A really interesting episode about Blazor...

~frank