Blog
Thoughts, tutorials, and insights on web development
What the inner dev loop is, why Kubernetes makes it painfully slow, and why it's cheaper to close the 'works locally / breaks in the cluster' gap before you deploy.
What 'production-like' really means, where to draw the line between fidelity and convenience, and why docker-compose is an anti-pattern as a stand-in for prod.
A map of the 2025–2026 ecosystem: Docker, kubectl, local clusters (k3d/kind/minikube), Helm, Kustomize, loop accelerators (Tilt/Skaffold), k9s — and why we pick k3d + Tilt.
Install Docker, kubectl, k3d, helm and tilt on macOS, Linux and Windows+WSL2, add k9s, and verify the whole toolchain works.
Why k3d is the fastest, lightest way to run Kubernetes locally, when to reach for kind or minikube instead, and how to create a cluster with a built-in registry.
Write a production-ready Dockerfile: multi-stage builds, layer caching, slim base images, and the common mistakes that make images slow and bloated.