Ops

Most incident playbooks end up as wiki pages nobody reads during an actual incident. Here’s what survives contact with a real 3am pager. The first five minutes One person is the Incident Commander (IC). If that’s not clear, declare yourself IC. Acknowledge the page Post in #incidents: “Incident: [brief]. I am IC.” Start a timeline document (even just a text file) Check public status page — update if user-visible Don’t dig into the problem yet. Set up the command structure first. ...

The “self-host everything” movement has passionate advocates on both sides. Reality is nuanced. Here’s the framework I use when deciding. Cost isn’t the main factor Many self-host advocates lead with cost savings. Usually it’s misleading: SaaS at small scale is often free or cheap ($0-50/mo) Self-hosting on cheap VPS starts around $5/mo But self-hosting eats engineer time — 2-10 hours/month for maintenance At $100/hr engineering time, self-hosting often costs MORE than SaaS Cost-wise, self-hosting wins when you’re either: ...