Notes on Reliability
How systems fail, how to see it early and what a good failure looks like.
The plugin that changed hands
A plugin you trust gets a new owner. The next update says compatibility and adds a call home. Sightread reads the update before you install it.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
The staging copy with the live Stripe key
A plain copy of production hands staging every customer and the live keys. Roadie makes the copy safe, then checks it and signs a pass or fail report.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
The .env file anyone could download
The worst leaks on a PHP site are files anyone can download: a .env, a config backup, a debug log. Tuner finds them from outside and masks the secrets.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
The update that broke the contact form
After a plugin update every page loads and looks the same, while the form and a button quietly stopped working. Soundcheck checks the whole site before and after.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
What your staging site really sends
A staging copy of a shop still knows every customer. Echo seals it so nothing reaches real people, then shows what each form and order sends after an update.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
Know before your clients do
The quiet failures a client finds first. Why I turned my after-update checks into free, open-source tools.
- Reliability
- Workflows
- Workflows
A 401 and a blurry receipt
A pipeline that never throws can hide an outage inside the review queue. Keep the never-throw design and make every failure carry its reason.
- AI in production
- Reliability
- Human in the loop
- Reliability, Human in the loop
The dumbest check I trust most
One wrong fact in an AI draft and I throw the whole draft away. Retrying until it passes ships wrong numbers that look right.
- AI in production
- Human in the loop
- Reliability
- Human in the loop, Reliability
The navigation that never lands
A lost Suspense ping can leave a click pending forever. How to tell if you are hit, how to patch it and when to retire the patch.
- Reliability
- Architecture
- Architecture
What happens when this fails?
The question I ask of every system before it goes live. Break an invoice run four ways and watch what a good answer does.
- Workflows
- Reliability
- Architecture
- Reliability, Architecture