I build useful software close to the problem.

Volunteer operations platform

I am building a web application for Light into Europe, a guide dog foundation. I designed the functionality, chose the technology stack, and am implementing both the backend and frontend one domain at a time. I have completed the authentication flow, including login and invitations, and will continue with the operational features around dogs, medical appointments, volunteer availability, assignments, training progress, and stock across volunteer locations.

I started it to solve a problem I observed through direct volunteer experience. The application is still in active development.

AI as a development partner

I use AI in the volunteer application and my homelab as a tutor for concepts I am learning and to help identify bugs faster during debugging. For the volunteer application, I deliberately did not ask AI to write the code because I wanted to learn to build it myself. I use it to explain concepts, validate approaches, and help me reason through problems.

This website was also developed with AI as a collaborative partner: I used it to iterate on the structure, wording, Astro implementation, and styling while reviewing and directing the changes.

I also learned to verify its suggestions: it sometimes referred to HTMX 2 concepts or pre-Go 1.24 net/http behaviour, which I caught and asked it to correct. AI accelerates my learning, but does not replace my judgment.

Secure homelab platform

I have run my homelab for about seven years and gradually turned it into a production-like environment: it serves other family members and runs networking infrastructure such as DNS and DHCP. I exposed selected services through an external domain secured with SSL, then built monitoring with Grafana, Loki, Node Exporter, and Prometheus, alongside automated backups.

I recovered from a failing disk, an accidental purge of Docker volumes, and encrypted databases after they were compromised by bad actors, before stronger protections were in place. Today, SWAG/NGINX, Authelia, and CrowdSec protect the externally exposed entry point, while the other containers remain isolated.

Geocoding utility

I built this tool after seeing consultants manually correct customer addresses that had been poorly geocoded or work around the limited number of requests available through the Google API. The tool accepted an Excel template, let implementation or sales consultants select address columns, and returned coordinates using the HERE Maps API.

I built the application end to end. It was not officially released because ORD was subsequently integrated with the same HERE API.

Infant growth chart

I built an infant growth-chart application, starting with pure React and later moving to Next.js. The application uses MongoDB and publicly available CDC reference data for weight, head circumference, and length/height, helping a pediatrician quickly check whether a child’s growth follows the expected percentiles.

I focused on making an important clinical check quick to understand at a glance.

Automated regression testing

I am preparing to contribute to an initiative identified by the business and project management team: replacing parts of the weeks-long manual regression-testing period with automated tests before releases go to customers. The goal is to reduce testing time and catch configuration-related defects earlier in a large and highly connected system.

This initiative is planned for Q4 and has not started yet.

AI configuration assistant

I am building the knowledge foundation for an AI assistant that can understand how ORD configuration files and components relate to one another. I had the AI ask me questions about the configuration and captured the resulting explanations in a Markdown guide. The longer-term goal is to assess change impact, identify dead code, suggest bulk updates, and support repeated changes such as replacing XMLFileWriter with FileWriters or moving FileWriters to MSMQ.

The assistant will still require Git review, application validation, and manual testing. I plan to make another pass through the configuration before testing it.