Reading Notes #707

This week's highlights bring together insights on evolving API security, the realities of integrating AI into your workflow, and tools that can help streamline the testing process. I selected these pieces for their practical advice on simplifying everyday development tasks while building more robust and resilient infrastructure.

Programming

• Web Application & API Protection: An Overview (John Brawner) - I knew many security tools existed, and obviously I use some. But I learned a lot in this post. WAAP emerged because WAF alone was not enough to address APIs, bots, DDoS, and modern cloud traffic patterns in a single runtime protection model.

• How to Turn a Postman Collection into a Maintainable pytest Suite (Mikhail Golikov) - Tests are important, so keeping them clean should be too. This post gives us a great example of how to build reliable tools to do exactly that.

• OpenAPI Code Generation with Corvus: Typed HTTP Clients (Matthew Adams) - Who doesn't uses APIs?! I need to try that today!

AI

• A new way to reflect on how you use Claude - This post shares a reporting tool to visualize our Claude utilization.

• Better tools made Copilot code review worse. Here's how we actually improved it. (Napalys Klicius) - Interesting story that shares experiments to improve AI when doing code review. How it failed and how it work, and how the same fix didn't do great in a different context.

Miscellaneous

• Your Laptop Is the New Production Environment (Karan Verma) - The title definitely caught my attention, and it's so true. First post of a promising series.

• AI is ready. Your APIs probably aren't (Matt Gray) - Postman has always been an interesting tool. I've been using something else for a while but am thinking about exploring it again!

• How GitHub gave every repository a durable owner - A nice behind-the-scenes story where GitHub shares the issues, failures, learning and success.

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. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #706

This week's collection highlights several practical upgrades for your workflow, ranging from cleaner C# patterns to more secure ways to manage AI agents. I’ve also included a few podcast episodes and articles that offer some much-needed perspective on productivity and community life.

AI

• Why AI Agents Need Isolation with Docker SBX (Karan Verma) - Power comes with responsibilities. It's well known (at least for Spider-Man fans), but more seriously, AI users have a simple way to stay safe. And now, with "the kits", it looks like it's even easier.

• Using AI to Build a Blazor App 1: Start With the Problem (Jon Hilton ) - It's so true that AI doesn't always do or act the way we expect. In this case, I wonder if a different model would have been better. In my experience, GPT is better at doing things compared to brainstorming.

Databases

• Fundamentals of Azure DevOps with SQL projects - Azure SQL Dev Corner (Drew Skwiers-Koballa) - This post provides all the details and pieces of config/ code required to get an Azure DevOps pipeline to work, no magic.

Programming

• Azure WAF - Never used yet Yarp, but nice to see a great example exists for when I will. Great solution.

• How to match names in C# without exact string comparisons (Nick Harrison) - Excellent post that shares many patterns and strategies (with code snippets) to optimize our research.

DevOps

• New: Versioned CLI and SDK Docs (Cam Soper) - That's a nice feature that more should implement! You pick your API version, and the documentation follows.

Podcasts

• Create a Happier Version of Yourself: Redirect Your Energy for Positive Thinking (The Mel Robbins Podcast) - I think this episode should be listened to by so many! It's a simple discussion between a son and mom, but so helpful for anyone.

• The space between the Commits with Zed and DeltaDB's Nathan Sobo (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - I was happy to listen to this episode with Nathan and learn more about his projects: Zed and DeltaDB.

• Azure Container Apps with Paul Yuknewicz and Jan Kalis (.NET Rocks!) - Hmm, a very interesting usage of Azure Container Apps! I'll have to try that.

Miscellaneous

• 3 Tricks to Help You Stop Procrastinating (Suzanne Scacca ) - Need tips to improve your time management? This post is for you.

• Goodbye, forever, probably. (Salma) - Sad news for the communities, but at the same time, it's because of those same communities. This post shares a very sad portrait of the online world that affects many people.
  

~frank

Reading Notes #705

This week’s collection features a mix of critical .NET lifecycle updates and practical strategies for optimizing your database interactions. These selected articles offer helpful insights into everything from edge computing deployments to the evolving landscape of AI in modern workflows.

AI

• AI Raised the Bar (And Now We're All Tired) (Golnaz) - It's so true! So much can be done quickly today. An interesting question is: how do we avoid burning out resources and tokens? How, as human we stay smart? After all, life is a marathon, not a sprint!

Cloud

• How to Deploy Azure Local Small Form Factor (SFF) – Bringing Azure to the Edge (Thomas Maurer) - This post shares many information about what is possible to deploy on edge devices. It's not a how-to, however.

Databases

• EF Core LINQ Querying: Filtering, Projections, and Performance (Nick Cosentino) - This is a great post to quickly learn key principles and immediately improve the performance of our interactions with the database when using EF Core.

• EF Core vs Dapper in .NET: When to Use Each (Nick Cosentino) - Great post for developers or architects planning a future project. Both tools are great, so the decision factor depends on the context.

• Optimizing PostgreSQL on Azure directly in Visual Studio Code (Jesse Sullivan) - Interesting new tools in VS Code and Azure for PostgreSQL users. Curious to learn more about that Azure HorizonDB.

DevOps

• WSL container is now available for public preview (Craig Loewen) - This is great news; this will help improve deployment as now people can have an environmental test in WSL.

Programming

• Creating Dual Use Windows GUI and Console Applications (Rick Strahl) - I never thought about that complexity, and you would think that in 2026 it would be much simpler. Good to know!

• SkiaSharp 4.0 is here: announcing the first stable release - .NET Blog (Matthew Leibowitz) - Learn more about SkiaSharp that run under things like .NET MAUI and UNO platform. This new release should improve performance a lot.

• .NET 8 and .NET 9 will reach End of Support on November 10, 2026 - .NET Blog (Rahul Bhandari) - Time flies; it's good to have a reminder. This post includes a helpful timetable and references to help you migrate.

Miscellaneous

• Evaluating performance and efficiency of the GitHub Copilot agentic harness across models and tasks (Shibani Basava & Carlos Castro) - This is a nice post to learn a little about benchmarks.

~frank

Reading Notes #704

This week’s collection highlights practical ways to improve developer workflows, from faster test runs and more manageable pull requests to intuitive new AI integrations. I have gathered a few standout articles on Blazor components, Azure Functions updates, and the nuances of training coding agents for your specific stack.

Suggestion of the week

• Stop overloading your skills - Microsoft for Developers (Waldek Mastykarz) - The post ends with: "In many cases, models don’t need a textbook. They needed a cheat sheet." It's so true! And this post explains why and how to validate it.

Programming

• I built a little Claude that dances when it needs me (Jim Bennett) - I've been thinking about one of those notifications, and I really like what Jim did here. Have a look, it's way more useful than you think

• How to Filter a Blazor Table Control using .NET | ComponentOne (Ashwin Saxena) - Another Blazor component: ComponentOne. It's nice to have options.

Open Source

• How pull request limits are cutting down the noise (Camilla Moraes & Ashley Wolf) - This will help control the flow for many OSS projects. Hopefully, it will be seen positively by the communities.

DevOps

• Distributed Test Runs in the Aspire Community Toolkit | LINQ to Fail (Aaron Powell) - I didn't know all that was possible. This is a great post that shares the optimization iterations to make unit test runs take less time.

AI

• Azure Functions MCP Extension: What's New at Build 2026 (Lily Ma) - An easy win. Simple to write, fast and straightforward to deploy, and serverless.

• Intelligent Terminal 0.1.1 is here: bash support, new slash commands, and more customization (Hamza Usmani) - Finally! I know someone who has wanted this terminal for a very long time. It looks nice, I saw the demo at Build.

• When the model has never seen your code - Microsoft for Developers (Waldek Mastykarz) - A very interesting post, part of a series about how to make AI coding agents work correctly with your technology.

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. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #703

I spent some time this week tracking new developments in the AI and DevOps space to see what was worth a closer look. These notes highlight several interesting pieces regarding new model releases, infrastructure shifts, and more efficient ways to manage your project files.

DevOps

• Migrating Your GitHub CI to Hugging Face Jobs (Abubakar Abid) - Interesting, it's the first time I've read about HF jobs.

AI

• Introducing North Mini Code: Cohere’s First Model For Developers (Cohere Code Agents Team) - I feel like those new model blog posts are never simple to read. They are packed with numbers, statistics and comparisons with things you may not have known before. But that's what makes them interesting; they are a deep source of information. And yes, that model looks great!

• Your API is Already an MCP Server (Marin Pavelić) - Very interesting idea that could make all of us save time and money.

Programming

• Exploring the SLNX Solution File Format (Dave Brock) - The new format has been out for a while now, and I use it in more and more projects. Much easier to read.

Reading Notes #702

This week’s compilation explores a mix of critical topics ranging from integrating AI models with SQL Server to navigating the complexities of Azure container troubleshooting. I’ve selected these particular articles because they offer practical ways to streamline your workflow and better understand the latest shifts in cloud infrastructure and software development.

Databases

• How to host an AI text embeddings model for SQL Server using Ollama (Greg Low) - Cool use of Ollama to get free AI with our databases.

AI

• Learn Anything With My /teach Skill (Matt Pocock) - I use AI to learn many times, but I didn't think doing a skill. Looking forward to trying it.

• How AI coding agents actually use your technology - Microsoft for Developers (Waldek Mastykarz) - A very interesting post that explains all the steps executed by VS Code harness when we submit our prompt. The post also provides some insights on why AI could still get bad results even if we provide SDK and MCP servers.

Cloud

• Troubleshooting Azure Container Apps and Jobs for .NET and Django Workloads | Microsoft Community Hub - First post of a series that covers the most frequent issues and provides methods to investigate and resolve the problems.

DevOps

• Open Source Observability: Tools, Setup, and Trade-offs (Spence Taylor) - A post that introduces many different tools used to collect or display information about logs and metrics, with potential challenges and more.

Miscellaneous

• How I made a 45-video course without wanting to die (Salma) - Doing a series that will work definitely requires preparation. Thank you for sharing Salma.

• Working with product managers (sean goedecke) - Was I that lucky all my life that I never encountered those types?

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. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #701

Modern infrastructure and AI agent development move fast, requiring a sharp eye on both backend stability and frontend polish. This week’s curated notes highlight critical shifts in observability, security best practices for autonomous agents, and practical updates for .NET MAUI apps. Check out these essential reads to stay ahead of the curve.

AI

• Build 2026: From observability to ROI for AI agents on any framework | Microsoft Foundry Blog (Sebastian Kohlmeier) - Foundry offers observability features and has many other whistles. There were a few sessions about that during Build. This post provides an overview and session names for demos.

Programming

• Give Your .NET MAUI Android Apps a Material 3 Makeover - .NET Blog ( Gerald Versluis) - So simple that it's hard not to try it

DevOps

• Why Choose Pulumi Over Terraform? (Pablo Seibelt) - I have never tried Pulumi or terraform, but they look great, and after reading this post, I'm very interested in learning more about ballooning

Data

• AI observability vs monitoring: What's the difference? (Jesse Sumrak) - Do you know the difference? You understand both, but where one ends and the other starts? Good post to clarify that.

MS Build

• How to Secure AI Agents: A Practical Overview (Srini Sekaran) - This post suggests grounded practices and explains the reasons behind them.

• Microsoft Agent Framework at BUILD 2026 | Microsoft Agent Framework (Shawn Henry) - List of Microsoft Build event sessions about the Agent framework.

~frank

Reading Notes #700

Seven hundred weeks.

When I started taking notes about the articles I was reading, I never imagined I would still be doing it 700 weeks later.

Back then, my notes lived on a USB key. I carried a small personal wiki with me and used it to save interesting articles, ideas, and discoveries. It was a simple way to build my own searchable knowledge base so I could find things again when I needed them.

In 2011, I started sharing those notes publicly on my blog, Franky's Notes. A few months later, I made another important change: I switched from writing in French to writing in English. At the time, I wasn't fluent, but I wanted to improve. "Notes de lecture" became "Reading Notes", and every week became an opportunity to learn something new while practicing a language that would eventually become a big part of my career.

Over the years, the format evolved. Articles were joined by podcasts, books, videos, and whatever else helped me learn and stay curious. Technology changes constantly, and one of the things I enjoy most about working in this industry is that there is always something new to discover.

What never changed was the habit itself.

Most mornings start the same way: a coffee, my e-reader, and a few articles. Throughout the week, I collect the things that made me think, taught me something, or simply felt worth sharing. Then, every Monday, I publish a new edition.

Seven hundred weeks later, these reading notes have become much more than a list of links. They are a record of what caught my attention, what I was learning, and how both technology and I have changed over the years.

If you've been reading along for a while, thank you. If you're new here, I hope you discover something interesting in the links below.

Suggestion of the week

• Harness, Scaffold, and the AI Agent Terms Worth Getting Right (Sergio Paniego, Aritra Roy Gosthipaty) - This post shares a list of definitions. If you feel like there are some terms used in the "AI world" that you are not sure what they mean, this post is for you.

AI

• Building an On-Device Voice Assistant with Microsoft Foundry Local | Microsoft Community Hub (Lee Stott) - Cool project! Really need to look into the local Foundry.

• Building Fluent Icon Finder with the WinUI Copilot Skill (TheJoeFin) - I like the idea of these vibe-coded tools, as I often spend a lot of time searching for the right icon.

• The Untrusted Autonomous Workload and AI Sandboxes (Vladimir Mikhalev) - Very nice post that shares how Docker sandboxes could help us do our work safely.

• 9 Things People Get Wrong With /grill-me and /grill-with-docs (Matt Pocock) - These are excellent tips to use with this skill, but they are also true in many other circumstances.

• Meet Gordon: AI Agent for Container Workflows | Docker (Nuno Coracao, Deanna Sparks) - Gordon looks like the specialized agent we are all looking for. Looking to see if it delivers as advertised.

Programming

• aspire init is no longer one-size-fits-all. The aspireify skill and your coding agent tailor the AppHost to your repo. (Erik Lieben) - I would say an interesting twist in this new version. A smart upgrade (pun intended)

Miscellaneous

• An important update: Transitioning Gemini CLI to Antigravity CLI - I migrated this week to Antigravity IDE 2.0, and it works great. I had an intense coding session with the CLI (thanks to the crappy weather), and it just worked! No issues, no adaptation, no conversion. 5/5

~frank

Reading Notes #699

This week's reading notes bring you the latest insights into AI, .NET, open-source development, and even a few social hacks! From exploring background tasks in Blazor to the fascinating debate on Markdown vs. HTML for AI output, this roundup has something for everyone.

Let me know if you find anything particularly interesting; I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Programming

• Running background tasks in Blazor with Web Workers: Exploring the .NET 11 preview - Part 1 (Andrew Lock) - This web worker role looks promising. This post explains the what, why, and how.

• NuGet Package Pruning: Cleaner Dependencies and Actionable Vulnerability Reports - .NET Blog (Nikolche Kolev) - This post explains one feature that is now turned on by default in .NET that will improve our dependency graph.

AI

• Anthropic Engineer Debates Use of Markdown vs. HTML in AI Agent Output (Paul Thurrott) - Interesting debate. Initially, I was hell no! But the more I think about it, the less certain I am. But we can always ask to generate HTML, so I guess it's okay to keep it lighter and more minimalist by default.

• Using Azure Local Foundry CLI with PowerShell (Olivier Miossec) - A nice short tutorial to get local AI.

Open Source

• GitHub for Beginners: Getting started with OSS contributions (Kedasha Kerr) - Short tutorial that provides tips to find a project and start your first contribution

Podcasts

• 513: Agents Over Chat: The Future of Developer Workflows (Merge Conflict) - James and Frank discuss token optimization, model choices, and the workflow; do you make one master big plan or do you do multiple passes...

• How to Stop Being Socially Awkward (According to Science) with Behavioral Scientist Vanessa Van Edwards (A Bit of Optimism) - I really appreciated this episode, and I wish many others would find it. It's packed with little gems that will make you feel better.

Miscellaneous

• If You Didn't Capture It, Did It Really Happen? (Golnaz Alibeigi) - Will people attend an in-person event if it's available online? That's what this post answers.

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. 

 ~frank

Reading Notes #698

The world of AI is exploding, and with that explosion comes a crucial question: how do we keep these powerful agents in check? Traditional security methods might not cut it anymore, so developers are turning to innovative sandboxing techniques. Let's explore some of the most promising approaches and see which ones emerge as the frontrunners in this AI safety race.

AI

• Comparing Sandboxing Approaches for AI Agents (Siri Varma Vegiraju) - Good news, we have options! But right now, what looks the easiest and safest is the Docker sandbox

• I stopped using /grill-me for coding. Now, I use /grill-with-docs (Matt Pocock) - Looking forward to try this one as the original grill-me was a revelation for me.

Programming

• What's New in Aspire 13.3 (Maddy Montaquila) - Oh, I love that new WithBrowserLog() need to upgrade all my solutions asap!

DevOps

• Top 15 CI/CD Metrics: What to Track & Why They Matter (James Walker) - Are our workflows and pipeline healthy? Could we improve them? This post shares metrics to help us answer these questions.

Podcasts

• he Real Reason You Feel Empty (Even When Life Looks Good) with Musician Mike Posner (A Bit of Optimism) - Fun discussion about life and how the goal in life shouldn't be getting to the end but enjoying the journey.

• Use What Works with Dylan Beattie (.NET Rocks!) - This episode will provide great information for anyone who is interested in using an open source project to build their solution. You should not see OSS as only being free, and you should consider how you can help the maintainers.

• AI SREs, Chat With Your Infrastructure with Anyshift (Agentic DevOps : AI Engineering for Infrastructure) - An interesting tool that Anyshift.io that digs into our infra to build a diagram and helps us to see. See what works and understand what doesn't. I might go try the free trial.

• The Science of Achieving Goals: How to Change Your Life in 5 Simple Steps (The Mel Robbins Podcast) - We all have goals, some are attainable faster than others. For those goals that require more planning, this episode shares simple steps (very simple indeed) to achieve them. It's explained as only Mel can do it.
  

I've made it a habit to share the fascinating articles, blog posts, and books that cross my path each week. Think of this as an open invitation, if you stumble upon something intriguing, don't hesitate to share it!
Let's build a community of curious minds.

~frank

Reading Notes #697

This week’s reading notes cover a wide range of topics, from local AI workflows and Docker agent fleets to data privacy, SQL tips, and developer tooling updates. There’s also an interesting look at how AI may be reshaping platforms like GitHub, alongside practical articles and podcasts packed with ideas for developers and tech enthusiasts alike.

Programming

• The new Run dialog: faster, cleaner, and more capable (Clint Rutkas) - Nice boost to performance for Run dialog (currently only in the insider version)

• Ghostty Is Leaving GitHub (Mitchell Hashimoto) - I didn't realize it was that bad! It's true that I spend less time there, but did AI cause all those outages (by generating peaks of traffic)

• Run Gemma 4 with Ollama locally, and keep the Aspire LLM Insights (sparkles and all) (Erik Lieben) - Oh yes! Interesting tutorial that explains how to hook local AI to Aspire (a dev tool)

Data

• Things I Think I Think... Data Privacy - Data is the new gold, the new oil, now more than ever. This post shares an opinion of our future.

AI

• AI Agent Fleet for CI/CD: How Docker Ships Faster (Manuel de la Peña) - This is a nice post that describes a new tool that's great and also provides good tips on how to write your skills.

• Generate Images Locally with Docker Model Runner (Ignasi Lopez Luna) - I have a very similar setup, and I love having a local AI for my little tasks

• Burn Through Your Backlog With My /triage Skill (Matt Pocock) - This post explains a skill triage to help you in your repos. There is also a video version.

Databases

• Why COALESCE might be the most useful SQL function you’re not using right ( Lukas Vileikis) - If you don't know, coalesce this post for you. If you don't know any other alternative, this post is for you. If you're not sure when to use what this post is also for you

Podcasts

• Docker AI, what’s new with MCP, Agents, Sandboxes, and more (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Michael Irwin from Docker is on this episode and they go through alllll the recent releases and some major upcoming stuff, rellay interesting episode

• Making opinionated AI tooling decisions with Nimbalyst's Greg Hinkle (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Interesting discussion around Nimbalyst, an AI tool that has a few pretty cool tricks up its sleeves

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 #696

This week's collection highlights the rapid evolution of AI agents, exploring their asynchronous capabilities, deployment journeys, and their impact on DevOps and video editing. On the programming front, we explore new Git features and API versioning with OpenAPI in .NET 10. We also dive into some fascinating podcast discussions ranging from the GUI vs. CLI debate to generational perspectives in the workplace. 

Enjoy the reading!

AI

• All your agents are going async — /dev/knill (Zak Knill) - An interesting solution is explained in this post to ease our communication with AI agents.

• AI Didn't Kill Video Editing (It Made Some Nice Motion Graphics) (Golnaz) - It's so easy and convenient to think that AI is doing the work and could replace humans if you don't know what really is the tasks.

• From Local to Production: The Complete Developer Journey for Building, Composing, and Deploying AI Agents | Microsoft Foundry Blog (Takuto , jeffhollan) - Finally reaching v1! Hurray! And a new name for a VS Code extension.

Programming

• New features in Git 2.54: easier rebasing, hooks, and statistics (Andrew Lock) - A nice post that explains how to rebase correctly with the new features included in the last release

• Combining API versioning with OpenAPI in .NET 10 applications - .NET Blog (Sander ten Brinke) - There is a lot in this post. Close to the end, she explains how to configure SwaggerUI or Scalar to visualize your API. Nice, since now API doc is generated by OpenAPI.

Podcast

• 510: AI Agents: Claws, Copilot, GUI vs CLI Debate (Merge Conflict) - In this episode, James is put in the spotlight and needs to talk about this phone situation. Honestly, interesting discussion and they finally end up talking about the AI agent, you know, CLI versus UI.

• The Real Reason Young People Don't Have 'The Hunger' for Work (And What Leaders Need to Hear) with Generations Expert Dr. Eliza Filby (A Bit of Optimism) - I'm sure, like me, you heard about "the Gen Z are doing this" or "the millennials are like that". It's interesting to go deeper than this and understand the reason why the Boomer, the Gen X, all those generation they do what they do, and also understand the phase, the years, like why all those generations seems to get closer and closer.

• Can AI Agents Safely Become DevOps Engineers? (Agentic DevOps : AI + Infra Ops) - I read and consume a lot of AI as a developer, it's interesting to see the DevOps side waking up and are building AI agents that focus on DevOps.

• Chet Husk: .NET Tooling - Episode 399 (AI DevOps Podcast) - I never thought about that competition, the human versus the machine, related to the consumption of the output of a CLI. This was a very interesting episode about the performance and the priorities.

~frank

Reading Notes #695

A mix of thoughtful perspectives and practical updates this week. From evolving AI tools and model selection guidance to changes in developer workflows and tooling, there’s plenty to reflect on. Add in insights on streaming and a strong push toward more secure environments, and you get a well-rounded set of reads worth your time.

Suggestion of the week

• Why MicroVMs: The Architecture Behind Docker Sandboxes (Srini Sekaran, Craig Gumbley) - Yes! Officially launched, so we can finally include some security in our processes!

AI

• Introducing Claude Design by Anthropic Labs - Looking forward to try the new interface that that seams to allow a more artistic interaction.

• The importance of people who care – Rachel Andrew - Interesting post about people who care in the world, where doing a lot of stuff fast is seen as a goal

• Changes to GitHub Copilot Individual plans (Joe Binder) - Big changes for Copilot that will probably affect your workflow. This post shares the details and reasons of this disturbance; it's all for a good reason

• GPT-5 vs GPT-4.1 - choosing the right model for your use case - Microsoft Foundry - Yes, this post is about two specific models in Foundry, but it's still true that it can definitely help to understand when to pick one model over the other in general

Programming

• It's Time for a Visual Studio Upgrade - This post does a comparison between the old and the new versions of the Visual Studio IDE and shares details about the most impactful changes.
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Livestreaming Before It Was Cool (Golnaz) - Curious to learn more about the streaming options from the different platforms to the tools, and the pro and cons of each? This post is for you, and on top of that, you get the Microsoft story.

~frank

Reading Notes #694

A fast-moving mix this week: AI tooling, ARM readiness, Docker sandboxes, and real-world lessons from agents. Practical insights across .NET, DevOps, and local-first workflows.

Suggestion of the week

• Token Exhaustion: What Three AI Coding Agents Taught Me in a Single Week (Alexandre Brisebois) - Great post! Everyone needs to learn this lesson. Now you have an alternative instead of the hard way.

AI

• How Intelligent is AI? (Shawn Wildermuth) - Interesting thoughts about the current situation between code, developers, and AI

• How to Analyze Hugging Face for Arm64 Readiness (Ajeet Singh Raina) - This is a great tutorial that explains in detail how, in 7 steps, you can produce a stable arm container image.

• Foundry Local is now Generally Available (sam kemp) - Interesting solution when you need to stay local.

• Copilot CLI vs VS Code - When I Use Each (Golnaz) - Learn when some prefer using a CLI or an editor. There are so many different angles and things to do.

Programming

• Running AI agents with customized templates using docker sandbox (Andrew Lock) - The post have been waiting for! This post goes further than the happy path. Shows how to add the tools you want or the os you need.

• Why .NET MAUI Popups Lag and How to Fix Performance Issues (Kompelli Sravan Kumar) - Good to know performance as such a huge impact[on the user experience.

DevOps

• Reclaim Developer Hours through Smarter Vulnerability Prioritization with Docker and Mend.io (Adam Dawson, Dor Hayun) - Understand better the vulnerabilities with the new integration of mend.io to Docker

Podcasts

• Our Favorite Agent Setups (Agentic DevOps) - Nice discussion that goes through many AI harnesses, agents, models, and what they are playing with right now. OpenClaw, OpenCode, Claude Code, Copilot, and all of it.

• Michael Perry: AI-assisted Development - Episode 397 (AI DevOps Podcast) - Interesting discussion about AI-assisted Development (or can we say programming?) with a focus on skills and how they could be defined.

Reading Notes #693

I'm always on the lookout for innovative ways to enhance my coding experience, and this week's Reading Notes are filled with exciting discoveries! From cutting-edge UI libraries to secure sandbox environments for AI agents, I've curated a selection of articles that showcase the latest programming trends and technologies. 

Whether you're interested in harnessing the power of Docker sandboxes or exploring the potential of smart glasses integration, there's something on this list for everyone.

Programming

• What's new for the Microsoft Fluent UI Blazor library 5.0 RC2 (Vincent Baaij) - V5 already! Wow, time flies! Tons of features in this release, looking forward to try the pinned column from the grid.

AI

• Docker Sandboxes: Run Agents in YOLO Mode, Safely (Eric Jia, Srini Sekaran,Timir Karia) - From what I saw, it is very secure, and it is that simple to set up. Looking forward to do more with it.

• Running AI agents safely in a microVM using docker sandbox (Andrew Lock) - This post answers so many questions! I heard a lot about those sandboxes and tried a few things, but had so many questions. Great post Andrew.

• Experimenting with AI subagents (Nicolas Fränkel) - An interesting story with what seems to be a good vision of the future.

• Old Protocols, New Pipes (Mark Downie) - Well said! And I hope you had a good time doing it.

• I Recorded 13 Hours of My Day With Smart Glasses for AI. Here's What I Built and What I Learned (tash-2s) - A really cool project that uses AI to make a pile of videos into some kind of dataset. A new to do daily journaling.

Miscellaneous

• Claude Code Windows Migration Guide: Move Your Setup (Dirk Strauss) - There is always a part that is easy in starting a new computer and a part that requires more effort.

~frank

Reading Notes #692

The tech landscape is constantly evolving, and keeping up with the latest developments can be overwhelming. From AI-powered tools like Ollama and OpenClaw, to new ways of programming with Aspire Docs and Azure CLI, it seems like there's always something new to explore. In this edition of Reading Notes, I'll share some of the interesting things that caught my eye recently, from AI advancements to developer tools and beyond.

Suggestion of the week

• The Future of Tech Blogging in the Age of AI (Mark Heath) - Great post, and the timing is perfect. Personally, I agree to all of it. What are your thoughts?

AI

• Ollama is now powered by MLX on Apple Silicon in preview - Great news for those who bought the new M5 Apple computer, Ollama is now much faster for you!

• The simplest and fastest way to setup OpenClaw - Hard to be easier than this. I wish we could do the same to run it inside a Docker sandbox

• Meet GitAgent: The Docker for AI Agents that is Finally Solving the Fragmentation between LangChain, AutoGen, and Claude Code - MarkTechPost (Michal Sutter) - Another day, another AI tool. It looks interesting, curious to dig in and see it in action.

Programming

• Aspire Docs in Your Terminal (and Your AI's Brain) (David Pine) - Really cool idea, and for sure I will try it. Having options is great, and this is done perfectly here

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - March 2026: Run and Debug AI Agents Locally, GitHub Copilot Integration, & Container App Jobs (PuiChee (PC) Chan) - Nice update from this great deployment tool.

Miscellaneous

• NDI Tools: The Unsung Hero of Video Production (Golnaz) - I started using NDI tools for my stream back in 2020, when I was bringing one of my friends into my stream. Amazing, and you must read this post

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

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #691

This week’s notes bounce between terminals, copilots, and the shifting shape of AI tools in our daily work. From real-world experiments in large .NET projects to small quality-of-life improvements that just make coding smoother, there’s a lot to chew on. A few links stood out more than expected and might change how you approach your setup or your workflow.

All ready the end of the month!

Open Source

• Windows Terminal Preview 1.25 Release (Dustin Howett) - Nice to see a new update for our beloved terminal.

AI

• Ten Months with Copilot Coding Agent in dotnet/runtime - .NET Blog (Stephen Toub) - A real and big project, 10 months of experiments, 1 takeaway and a lot of details with numbers to explain it all.

• Claude Code with Docker: Local Models, MCP, Sandboxes (Yiwen Xu) - Short jump-post. It contains the references needed, including a video, to package Claude Code locally.

• OpenAI is planning a desktop ‘superapp’ (Jay Peters) - Interesting to see the result of this app merge.

• You no longer have to wait for Copilot to finish thinking (Bart Wullems) - Amazing! I love it! Another scenario where this is useful is when you press the wrong new-line key combination, and it sends your request instead of adding a new line.

• My 'Grill Me' Skill Went Viral (Matt Pocock) - After trying grill me, I knew I couldn't do without it. It is a great skill as it forces us to really flesh out our idea.

• Product management on the AI exponential - Interesting post where we learn more about the day-to-day of a PM at Anthropic

Miscellaneous

• DevRel Is Not Measured Like Other Roles — And That Needs to Change (Dewan Ahmed) - This in between role is are to define and to measure.

~frank

Reading Notes #690

AI keeps changing how we build, think, and even feel about software. This batch of posts & episodes mixes practical agent skills, vibe coding, and faster shipping with a bit of reflection on the old internet and why it still sticks with us.

AI

• 5 Agent Skills I Use Every Day (Matt Pocock) - This post shares really useful and impactful skills and explains how they work.

• A beginner's guide to vibe coding (Jessica Wachtel) - A nice and light post that describes the rules or the freedom of vibe coding.

• How VS Code Builds with AI (Pierce Boggan) - From shipping monthly to weekly, this post explains how the VS Code maintainers achieved that.

• Let your Coding Agent debug your browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP | Blog | Chrome for Developers (Sebastian Benz, Alex Rudenko) - That's a nice one! Really useful MCP

• 9 Ways AI Coding Has Rewired My Brain (Matt Pocock) - An interesting post that not only describes an efficient way to code with AI but also to stay relevant.

Podcasts

• Your Images are Out of Date (probably) - The Silent Rebuilds problem (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Very interesting episode. I guess I never realized how true it is that as soon as you download your image, they are outdated. This episode talks about the concept of silent rebuilds and tools to help us solve that issue.

• 503: Welcome to Tiny Tool Town (Merge Conflict) - With a name like Tiny Tool Town, my head always goes to Looney Tunes. No idea why, but this episode is not about that. It's about the collection of open source tools named: Tiny Tool Town, and they also talk about different models in GitHub Copilot.

• Building Software using Squad with Brady Gaster (.NET Rocks!) - Turn your Coplot to 11 with Squad. Carl and Richard talk to Brady Gaster about Squad, a tool for creating an AI development team using GitHub Copilot.

• Daniel Ward: AI Agents - Episode 393 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - In this episode, they talk about the different AI tools used by developers and DevOps people, and the trends.

• Everything Is a Graph (Even Your Dad Jokes) with Roi Lipman (Screaming in the Cloud) - Nice episode about different database and most obviously about graph databases. Very interesting to learn more about all that explosion of database types.

Miscellaneous

• Kill Your Ego, Ship Your Work (Golnaz) - Great advice from Golnaz in this post. This is why so many people want to work with her.

• I Think a Lot of Developers Are Quietly Grieving the Old Internet (NorthernDev) - I think this feeling is real and I hope it won't stay long.

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

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #689

Another week, another batch of interesting reads. This edition covers AI video experiments, extending coding agents with .NET skills, open source contributions, and a few podcast episodes worth adding to your queue.

AI

• I Spent $50 on AI Video Generation and Got Nothing Usable (Golnaz) - Interesting to see how a prof3esional video studio sees AI and what they can and cannot do with this tool.

• Extend your coding agent with .NET Skills - .NET Blog (Tim Heuer) - New repo and vscode extension to give us access to a bank of managed skill files for our agents.

• Reka Edge: Frontier-Level Edge Intelligence for Physical AI -  Launch of the latest version of Reka Edge, a vision language model that you can run locally.

Programming

• We are still engineers (Mark Downie) - Just like Mark, many engineers feels the same way.

Open Source

• How to make your first contribution to an open source project (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Another great post from Salma, this time sharing her experience about open source projects and how to get started in the lowest stress way.

• OpenWebUI + Model Runner: Zero-Config Local AI (Ignasi Lopez Luna) - I'm a fan of OpenUI, and seeing this synergy between projects is awesome! This post is a must if you are thinking of running some AI locally, which will save you some pain.

Podcasts

• Run your AI Agent in a Sandbox, with Docker President Mark Cavage (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Very nice episode about all the more AI features that Docker have and more precisely Sandbox.

• The Rise of The Claw with OpenClaw's Peter Steinberger (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Finally! The OpenClaw that we all needed. Peter has been interviewed many times, and many people have written about OpenClaw, but this episode was exactly what I needed.

• Paul Duvall: AI-Driven Development - Episode 390 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - Another great discussion with a real DevOps expert about the impact of AI on our processes, and how we can use it.

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

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #688

I'm always on the lookout for innovative ideas to streamline my development workflow. This week, I stumbled upon some fascinating reads that caught my eye, among them, an article about building an AI-powered pull request agent using GitHub Copilot SDK, and another demonstrating the secure use of OpenClaw in Docker sandboxes.

AI

• Building an AI Pull Request Agent for Azure DevOps using GitHub Copilot SDK (Dominique St-Amand) - That's a cool idea to have your custom agent.

• Run OpenClaw Securely in Docker Sandboxes (Oleg Selajev) - Now that looks much safer! I just need to decide what I would connect it to, and I could finally try it. Nice tutorial.

• What's new with GitHub Copilot coding agent (Andrea Griffiths) - Oh wow, I didn't know we could continue our session from the cloud to the CLI and the other way around ,pretty cool

• Subagents and web search in Claude Code - A short post showing how to use the sub agent from Claude code running on Obama.

Programming

• WebAssembly is everywhere. Here's how it works (Jessica Wachtel) - This post explains all the magic of wasm, and it's maybe more than you think.

• A minimal way to integrate Aspire into your existing project (Tim Deschryver) - I really like this post that explains how to add an existing solution to Aspire. On top of that, this solution contains JavaScript and .NET products awesome.

• Cleaner switch expressions with pattern matching in C# (Bart Wullems) - My first reaction when I read the code in this post was: Wait, what? That works?! So, I guess I also forgot that C# has evolved; it's so much clearer.

~frank