I build small things I actually use: a list app my family shares, a couple of sites, and the servers they run on. I’m one person, not a company, and this isn’t a portfolio.
Think of it as a workbench with the lights left on. What I’m building right now, what’s already out there, and what went wrong along the way, because that last part is the bit worth reading.
self‑hosted · written by hand · updated 2026-10-09
now
This site
Live, with Pip in the corner. Brand settled over three rounds; the write‑ups are still drafts and the legacy domain still points at the old box.
[2/4] since 2026-08-29Contabo cutover
Moving everything off the RackNerd box onto a Contabo host. Three of four apps are over; the dashboard is the holdout.
[3/4] since 2026-08-12
shipped
Lystz
Shared lists for a household. Groceries, chores, anything you’d otherwise text each other about, updating live for everyone in the circle. Invite‑only beta.
Diabetes in Fiction
A catalogue of novels in which at least one character has diabetes. 218 books so far, each with a plot summary and a note on how the diabetes is handled.
Server dashboard
The only monitoring on the production box. Host metrics, 24 hours of history, HTTP and SMTP probes, Discord alerts. One dependency. Behind a login, so no link.
Coolify host setup
Scripts that turn a blank Ubuntu server into a hardened Coolify host in ten phases, with a pre‑flight that fails before anything is installed. There is a game‑server variant.
lately
broke
The dashboard deploys the previous image
Merging a change to the dashboard deploys the image from the merge before it.
broke 2026-08-14The latest tag that never updated
Every deploy said it succeeded and every deploy served the old build.
broke 2026-08-08Postgres resolved to the wrong container
A service called postgres on a shared Docker network is not unique enough. The app connected to another project's database.
broke 2026-08-05
colophon
Astro builds it, Caddy serves it, one container on a Contabo box behind Coolify. Type is IBM Plex Mono and Plex Serif, served from here. The one in the corner up top is Pip; the rules they live by are on the brand page. No analytics, no cookies, nothing loads from anywhere else.