What this is

This site is a notebook left open on the table. Mostly it's me thinking out loud about how to build software without losing the thread of being a person. If you find one thing here that helps you ship something — or stop shipping something — it did its job.

I'm Mina. I write code, mostly TypeScript, mostly at night, and I run a lot of agents in parallel so I can keep the boring parts of the loop moving while I think about the interesting parts. If any of that sounds familiar, you're in the right place.

Two stories I keep coming back to

"Call me Ishmael." — Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 1

Every builder is chasing something pale and enormous past the shipping lanes. The useful question isn't will I catch it. It's who do I become while chasing it, and do I take the crew down with me. If you are reading this in the middle of a chase, that's the question I'd lay on your desk.

"We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all." — Twain, Huckleberry Finn, ch. 18

The river is also an option. Lashed-together commits, leaks a little, gets you there. Not every project needs to be a whaler. Some need to be a raft. Knowing which one you're on this week is half the work.

What you'll find here

• Principles — practices I've stolen and tested. TDD by way of Captain Underpants. Local LLMs. Manifestation as scope-setting. Use what's useful, ignore the rest.
• Now — what I'm actually doing this week, and a frame for present-moment work if you need one.
• Daily notes and findings — small posts about specific things that worked, broke, or surprised me. Most of the genuine value lives there.

Permission slip

You have permission to:

• read in any order
• close the tab whenever
• disagree out loud
• borrow anything that's useful and never cite me
• email me at saleebmina@copt.dev if something here unlocks something for you, or if I got something wrong