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Notes from the workshop.

Practical, opinionated thinking on building for the web — platforms, commerce, cloud, performance, security, and AI.

AI Visibility

What AI shopping agents actually need from your product data

A practical, attribute-level look at the product data that makes an AI assistant confident enough to recommend you — and the gaps that quietly keep you out of the answer.

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AI Visibility

Shopify's catalog features: what they do, and what they don't do for you

Shopify keeps improving how it handles product data — which raises a fair question: doesn't the platform already make me visible to AI for free? Here's the honest answer.

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AI Visibility

Is your Shopify catalog invisible to ChatGPT?

Shoppers are asking AI assistants what to buy — and the assistants answer from catalogs they can actually read. If yours isn't one of them, you're invisible at the moment of decision. Here's how to tell, and what to do.

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Hiring

The Forward Deployed Engineer: the hardest hire in tech, explained

Part principal engineer, part consultant, part translator for the boardroom — and able to walk a factory floor and find the real problem. The Forward Deployed Engineer is one of the most valuable people you can put in front of a hard problem, and one of the hardest to find. Here is what the role actually is.

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Field Notes

Root cause, not the requested fix: the most underrated engineering skill

The best engineers don’t build what they’re asked — they build what’s actually needed. Here is what it looks like to hear the stated problem, respect it, and still go diagnose the real one — with examples of getting it right and getting it badly wrong.

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Hiring

How to hire a Forward Deployed Engineer (and the signals that fool you)

The profile is rare: a senior leader who managed teams and kept their hands in the code, who can root-cause in the field and present to the board. Here is where to look, what to actually test for, and the false signals that trip up good hiring teams.

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Strategy

Custom build or platform: how to actually choose

Platforms like WordPress and Shopify are genuinely great — until they are not. Here is a framework for figuring out which side of the line your project sits on.

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E-commerce

Shopify vs WooCommerce: which fits your store

Both platforms can run a great online store. The differences that matter are not the ones most comparison articles focus on.

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AI

Agentic commerce, explained for store owners

AI is moving from a search tool to a buying agent. Here is what that shift actually means for people who run online stores.

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AI

Putting LLMs to work inside your team

The most valuable AI deployments are not customer-facing chatbots. They are internal tools that make your existing team dramatically more capable.

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Performance

Why a faster site makes you more money

Page speed is not a technical vanity metric. It is a direct line to conversion rate, search ranking, and customer retention.

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Software

Build or buy: choosing a CRM that actually fits

Off-the-shelf CRMs promise everything. They deliver features you never asked for and gaps you can't fill. Here is how to decide whether to buy a platform or build something that matches the way you actually work.

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Cloud

GCP or AWS? Picking a cloud without overthinking it

AWS has more services. GCP has better pricing on compute and a cleaner data story. Neither one is right for everyone. Here is how to cut through the noise and pick the platform that fits your actual workload.

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Security

Security belongs in the foundation, not a patch

Retrofitting security onto a live application is expensive, incomplete, and sometimes impossible. The decisions that matter most happen in the first weeks of a project, not after something breaks.

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E-commerce

Headless commerce, in plain English

Headless commerce gets oversold as a revolution and undersold as a practical tool. Here is what it actually is, when it genuinely helps, and when a traditional store is still the right call.

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CMS

WordPress in 2026: when it still makes sense

WordPress gets dismissed by developers who have moved on and recommended by agencies who benefit from its ecosystem. Here is an honest look at where it still delivers and where something else will serve you better.

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Process

From idea to launch: how we actually build

Most agencies hand you a project plan and a Gantt chart. Here's what actually happens inside a JTS build — the decisions, the checkpoints, and why we structure it this way.

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Strategy

The real cost of a cheap website

A $500 website sounds like a deal until you calculate the business it cost you. The math on cheap web development is worse than it looks.

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AI

AI agents that actually help your customers

Most AI chatbots frustrate customers more than they help them. Here's what separates the useful ones from the ones that send people straight to 'speak with an agent.'

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SEO

SEO for the AI-search era

Search is changing faster than most SEO advice has caught up. Here's what actually moves the needle when AI overviews and chat-based search are reshaping how people find things.

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Web

Migrating off a legacy site without the pain

Legacy site migrations go wrong in predictable ways. Understanding where the risk actually lives — before you start — is the difference between a clean cutover and a month of firefighting.

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