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 #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 #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

Reading Notes #686

This week's Reading Notes is packed with AI insights, open-source discoveries, programming tips, and podcast episodes that will leave you eager to dive in. From Ralph Wiggum's coding secrets to the dangers of one-shot glamour, we've got it all covered. So grab your favourite beverage, settle in, and get ready to level up your tech game!

AI

• Run NanoClaw in Docker Shell Sandboxes | Docker (Oleg Selajev) - I like that sandbox idea. That might be enough for me to try Clawbot... Or not, but the sandbox, hell yeah!

• 11 Tips For AI Coding With Ralph Wiggum - This post is a gold mine of best practices and really good advice to start using the Ralph loop in safety.

• Getting Started With Ralph (Matt Pocock) - Nice idea that loop. Very well explained tutorial.

• Solve Context Window Limits With Context Packing (Philippe Charrière) - A very interesting post that explains in detail, with code samples, how to compact.

• The danger of glamourizing one shots (Scott Hanselman) - Very well said Scott!

Open Source

• I replaced Windows 11’s default apps with these open-source tools (Mauro Huculak) - A cool list of tools that, on top of everything, are open source

• Microsoft Launches winapp to Simplify Windows App Development (Aminu Abdullahi) - A new CLI to help set our environment and other things. I like the idea, I will have to try it out.

Programming

• Aspire—Your Stack, Streamlined - Cool nice free event coming up!

Podcast

• 499: Going Full Ralph, CLI, & GitHub Copilot SDK?!?! (Merge Conflict) - Really fun episode to listen to, the explanation of the Ralph loop pattern and hearing Frank panicking (sorry Frank) with all the emojis, it was a fun and very instructive episode.

• How Homebrew Became Mac's Package Manager with Mike McQuaid (Screaming in the Cloud) - As a user of Homebrew, I was really happy to learn more about its history and how it became what it is today.

• Married, Dating, or Single: The Best Relationship Advice You Will Ever Recieve (The Mel Robbins Podcast) - Because we are all in relationships with the community, our co-workers, families, and maybe lovers. Great episode to listen to.

• Making Reliable Software in 2026 with Damien Brady (.NET Rocks!) - An interesting conversation about how to make software reliable. It was very nice to hear from Damien again.

• What Grit Really Teaches Us About Happiness with Professor Angela Duckworth (A Bit of Optimism) - I've had her book on my reading list for a while, but listening to that passionate discussion on grit and happiness has reignited my interest and motivated me to bump it up my stack.

~frank