Insights on modern web development, AI-assisted coding, and technology trends from a principal software consultant.https://luca-becker.me/en-ushttps://luca-becker.me/blog/not-all-uuids-created-equal/https://luca-becker.me/blog/not-all-uuids-created-equal/Five UUID-looking identifiers, one subtle bug, and a reminder that platform ids do not always mean what you think they mean.Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTawsdebuggingtypescriptsecurityzodhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/marstek-b2500-cloud-crypto-broken/https://luca-becker.me/blog/marstek-b2500-cloud-crypto-broken/A tcpdump capture led to a closer look at the Marstek B2500-D cloud endpoint: plain HTTP, AES-128-ECB, and a static key.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTsolarbatterysecurityreverse engineeringhomelabsmart-homehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/git-fixup-autosquash-clean-commits/https://luca-becker.me/blog/git-fixup-autosquash-clean-commits/A small git fixup and autosquash workflow for moving temporary WIP changes back into the commits where they actually belong.Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTgitclideveloper-toolsproductivityworkflowhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/marstek-b2500-local-control-solar-battery/https://luca-becker.me/blog/marstek-b2500-local-control-solar-battery/Slotting a Marstek B2500-D between my panels and inverter, expecting a cleaner local API, and ending up building two open-source Go services around its undocumented MQTT interface.Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTsolarbatteryprometheusmqtthomelabsmart-homehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/git-fsck-rescue-lost-blog-post/https://luca-becker.me/blog/git-fsck-rescue-lost-blog-post/My blog post disappeared from the working tree. git fsck --lost-found and git cat-file got it back. I'd never heard of either command before.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTgitai-codingcursordeveloper-toolsproductivityhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/github-agentic-execution-environment/https://luca-becker.me/blog/github-agentic-execution-environment/You could already run AI in GitHub Actions. gh-aw's real novelty is the sandboxed execution environment around it, and one Renovate review showed why that matters.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTgithub-actionsai-codingsecurityautomationdeveloper-toolshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/hardening-npm-consumer-publisher/https://luca-becker.me/blog/hardening-npm-consumer-publisher/Axios got compromised, but the bigger lesson is how to harden npm as a consumer and, if relevant to you, as a publisher too.Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTnpmsecuritypublishingdeveloper-toolshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/reverse-engineering-gets-cheap/https://luca-becker.me/blog/reverse-engineering-gets-cheap/A benchmark on abandonware reverse engineering: one AI model refused, another reconstructed an old CD-key check in about 20 minutes.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTai-codingopencodereverse engineeringghidrasecurityhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/biggest-homelab-overhaul-yet/https://luca-becker.me/blog/biggest-homelab-overhaul-yet/My homelab was already working fine, but I rebuilt it anyway to get easier rollbacks, simpler disaster recovery, and a faster way to ship changes with AI.Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThomelabgitopskubernetesai-codingself-hostedautomationhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/mcp-oauth-gateway-authelia/https://luca-becker.me/blog/mcp-oauth-gateway-authelia/Add OAuth to remote MCP servers with an nginx gateway and Authelia. No more API keys in mcp.json. Just a URL and a browser login.Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTmcpoauthsecurityhomelabai-codingssohttps://luca-becker.me/blog/aurora-postgres-blue-green-upgrade-gotchas/https://luca-becker.me/blog/aurora-postgres-blue-green-upgrade-gotchas/Four hard-won lessons from upgrading Aurora PostgreSQL 15 to 16 via blue/green deployment - from PostGIS compatibility to TypeORM hidden DDL statements.Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTawspostgresai-codingopencodeconsultinghttps://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-skills-teaching-ai-coding-assistant/https://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-skills-teaching-ai-coding-assistant/From babysitting commands to fire-and-forget confidence: how Agent Skills transformed my git workflow and why they matter for AI-assisted development.Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcursorai-codingautomationdeveloper-toolsproductivityworkflowhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/solar-powered-crypto-mining-etc-surplus-energy/https://luca-becker.me/blog/solar-powered-crypto-mining-etc-surplus-energy/How I automated my RTX 3060 to mine Ethereum Classic only when my balcony solar panels export excess energy, with AI-assisted setup and Prometheus automation.Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTsolarcryptominingprometheushomelabgpuhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-3-build-your-own/https://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-3-build-your-own/When the MCP catalog doesn't have what you need, build it yourself. 40 minutes from idea to talking to Confluence.Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTmcpconfluenceai-codingclaude-codeopencodeenterprisessohttps://luca-becker.me/blog/google-translate-react-bug/https://luca-becker.me/blog/google-translate-react-bug/A mysterious production crash you can't reproduce locally. The culprit? Google Translate modifying the DOM behind React's back.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTreactdebuggingcursorai-codingproductionhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/balcony-solar-prometheus-ai-journey/https://luca-becker.me/blog/balcony-solar-prometheus-ai-journey/How I set up a balcony solar system, built a Prometheus exporter with Cursor, and redesigned my Grafana dashboard using Claude Code with MCP servers.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTsolarprometheuscursorclaude-codemcpsmart-homehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-from-tool-to-thinking-partner/https://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-from-tool-to-thinking-partner/A retrospective on six months of AI-assisted coding with Cursor - how Planning Mode became a brainstorming partner, why code review is now the bottleneck, and what to expect in 2026.Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTcursorai-codingdeveloper-experiencecode-reviewretrospectivehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/ai-code-reviews-diy-vs-copilot/https://luca-becker.me/blog/ai-code-reviews-diy-vs-copilot/Six weeks running OpenCode and GitHub Copilot in parallel on production code. Real costs, actual bugs caught, and which approach wins when UX battles capability.Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTaicode-reviewgithub-copilotopencodecursoraws-bedrockautomationdeveloper-toolshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-sandboxing-leaks-secrets/https://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-sandboxing-leaks-secrets/Cursor's new sandbox security model can expose credentials from your home directory. How the switch from allow-lists to filesystem access created new security risks.Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTcursorsecurityai-codingcredentialsdeveloper-toolssandboxinghttps://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-planning-mode-vs-hooks/https://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-planning-mode-vs-hooks/Planning Mode proves Cursor can iterate thoughtfully, while Cursor Hooks feels rushed. A detailed review of both features from six months of daily use.Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTcursorai-codingdeveloper-toolsideworkflowhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-2-playwright/https://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-2-playwright/Add browser automation to your AI agent with Playwright MCP. See how visual inspection transforms UI debugging from 10+ iterations to 2-3.Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTmcpplaywrightaicursorbrowser-automationtestinghttps://luca-becker.me/blog/aicommits-1-0-0-release/https://luca-becker.me/blog/aicommits-1-0-0-release/Announcing aicommits 1.0.0, a milestone release bringing flexible AI provider support, AWS Bedrock integration, and lessons learned from building AI tools with AI.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTaicommitsreleaseaigitopen-sourcehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-cli-more-than-desktop-terminal/https://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-cli-more-than-desktop-terminal/A hands-on review of Cursor's new CLI tool, covering installation quirks, model flexibility, GitHub Actions potential, and how it compares to desktop coding assistants.Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTcursorcliai-codingdeveloper-toolsgithub-actionshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/another-codex-openai-uncooperative-thinking/https://luca-becker.me/blog/another-codex-openai-uncooperative-thinking/Testing GPT-5-Codex against Claude Sonnet 4 and finding that long thinking times and uncooperative behavior kill developer productivity.Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTai-codingopenaigpt-5-codexclaudehttps://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-1-web-search/https://luca-becker.me/blog/level-up-agentic-coding-mcp-1-web-search/Bridge the gap between RooCode and Cursor by adding web search capabilities using the DuckDuckGo MCP server for current information during development.Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTmcproocodecursorweb-searchai-codingduckduckgohttps://luca-becker.me/blog/can-you-actually-code-from-your-phone-testing-cursor-agents/https://luca-becker.me/blog/can-you-actually-code-from-your-phone-testing-cursor-agents/I spent a few evenings testing Cursor Agents to see if AI-powered development on isolated VMs could actually let you code on the go. Here's what I learned about the promises and limitations of autonomous coding agents.Thu, 04 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTcursoraidevelopmentmobileproductivityai-agentshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/test-your-ssl-tls-configuration-before-your-users-do/https://luca-becker.me/blog/test-your-ssl-tls-configuration-before-your-users-do/Don't let certificate chain issues or outdated TLS configs bite you in production. Here's a bash tool that catches SSL/TLS problems before they catch you.Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTssltlssecuritybashtestingcertificateshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-hooks-reactive-development/https://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-hooks-reactive-development/Testing Kiro's Agent Hooks feature - a fascinating take on reactive development where your IDE automatically responds to changes. But does the execution match the innovative concept?Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTkiroamazonai-codingautomationreactive developmentdeveloper-toolshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/weird-scrolling-thing-git-pager/https://luca-becker.me/blog/weird-scrolling-thing-git-pager/Discover what pagers are, why git uses them, and explore modern alternatives to the default less pager for better command-line productivity.Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTgitclideveloper-toolsproductivityterminalhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/first-look-at-kiro-amazons-new-agentic-coding-tool-beta-impressions/https://luca-becker.me/blog/first-look-at-kiro-amazons-new-agentic-coding-tool-beta-impressions/Amazon's Kiro has brilliant architectural ideas but dangerous security flaws. My honest review after 4+ hours of testing - including why unpredictable command execution makes it too risky for real work yet.Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTkiroamazonai-codingdeveloper-toolscursorsecurityhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-vs-vscode-extensions/https://luca-becker.me/blog/cursor-vs-vscode-extensions/After months of testing Cursor against free VSCode extensions like RooCode and KiloCode, here's an honest breakdown of what actually matters in day-to-day AI-assisted development.Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTai-codingcursorvscodedeveloper-toolsproductivityhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/rag-isnt-as-complex-as-you-think/https://luca-becker.me/blog/rag-isnt-as-complex-as-you-think/How I went from thinking RAG required custom search APIs to building a functional knowledge base chatbot in one evening, using AI-assisted development to demystify vector embeddings.Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTragai-codingembeddingsdeveloper-toolscursortypescriptvector searchhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/ai-agent-poc-speedrun-any-90-minutes-to-working-demo/https://luca-becker.me/blog/ai-agent-poc-speedrun-any-90-minutes-to-working-demo/From weekend curiosity to client opportunity: How we built a working Postgres AI agent in 1.5 hours while chatting, and what it teaches us about the reality of AI-assisted development.Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTai-agentspostgresconsultingtypescriptcursorllmhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/building-weather-aware-lunch-bot-cursor/https://luca-becker.me/blog/building-weather-aware-lunch-bot-cursor/How I used Cursor to build a serverless Slack bot in just 2 hours of actual work - and why the hardest part wasn't the code, it was the corporate AWS discussions.Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTai-codingcursorserverlessslack botautomationtypescripthttps://luca-becker.me/blog/building-better-ai-commit-tool/https://luca-becker.me/blog/building-better-ai-commit-tool/Sometimes the best solution is to fork it yourself. Here's how I rebuilt aicommits from the ground up to handle real-world consulting requirements - and why it took just two weeks with AI assistance.Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTai-toolsdeveloper-experienceconsultingtypescriptautomationhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/lovable-dev-senior-developer-perspective-ai-design/https://luca-becker.me/blog/lovable-dev-senior-developer-perspective-ai-design/A senior developer's honest review of Lovable.dev - exploring how AI-powered design tools are finally delivering on their promises and changing the development landscape.Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTaidesigndevelopmentdeveloper-toolscode-reviewlovable.devhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/check-your-typescript-packages/https://luca-becker.me/blog/check-your-typescript-packages/Don't let sneaky module resolution issues ruin your users' day. Here's a CLI tool that catches TypeScript package problems before you publish.Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTtypescriptnpmpublishingclideveloper-toolshttps://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-coding-from-typing-to-talking/https://luca-becker.me/blog/agent-coding-from-typing-to-talking/Two months into AI-assisted development as a senior consultant - the key insights, best practices, and mindset shifts that transformed how I write code.Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTaiai-codingdevelopmentclaudecursorproductivityhttps://luca-becker.me/blog/introducing-my-blog/https://luca-becker.me/blog/introducing-my-blog/A brief introduction to my new blog where I'll share insights on modern web development, best practices, and the latest technologies I'm exploring.Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTweb developmentblogintroduction