Under the Hood

The patterns that keep reappearing across everything I build, mapped in one place. Each project's own page carries its deep dive; for the philosophy behind how and why I build, see My Approach.

Every project page carries its own deep dive, the architecture, the trade-offs, the numbers, and that’s where the details live. This page is the view across them. When you build enough tools solo, the same solutions start reappearing, and the recurrences say more about how I engineer than any single project can.

Architecture Patterns I Rely On

PatternWhere I Use ItWhy
Hexagonal / Ports & AdaptersTALONPure domain logic with zero framework deps. Swap DB, LLM, or API provider without touching core.
LLM as Auditor, Never JudgeClassifieds Briefing, RepoAuditA deterministic scorer makes the decision; the model audits it with bounded corrections it has to justify. The whole thesis, argued in four parts.
Hybrid Retrieval (RRF)Salesforce Vector Knowledge, SF-AssistantKeyword and vector search cover each other’s blind spots; rank fusion rewards chunks that do well in either.
Deterministic-FirstRepoAuditFull analysis without API keys; LLM validation is progressive enhancement, not a requirement.
Multi-Source FallbackTALON3-tier LiDAR discovery with graceful degradation, deterministic caching, and stale-job recovery.
Function Calling (Tool Use)TALONLLM selects from dynamic tool schemas to translate natural language into structured spatial queries.
Multi-Agent / MicroserviceMarket MonitorIndependent services with clear boundaries, communicating through loose coupling (IRC + DB).
Strategy / ProviderPrism, SF-Assistant, RepoAuditSwap AI providers with zero code changes. No vendor lock-in.
State MachineMarket MonitorAdaptive behavior driven by computed escalation scores.
Feedback Loop / CalibrationMarket Monitor, BookParserSystems that learn from their own prediction accuracy.
Layered Prompt CachingRepoAudit, Classifieds BriefingPrime the shared prefix once, then run the parallel burst against the warm cache instead of racing to write it.
Idempotent Ingestion (Hash Gating)Salesforce Vector KnowledgeSHA-256 gates on body and chunk: republishing costs zero callouts, a small edit re-embeds only what changed.
Circuit BreakerBookParser, Reddit Research, TALONSelf-healing systems that survive flaky APIs and LLM hallucinations.
Abstract FactoryChronicle, RepoAuditIngest N data sources or run N analysis profiles through one interface.
Async Multi-Phase PipelineRepoAudit (security)Independent analysis phases run in parallel with semaphore-based throttling.
Model CascadingBookParser, RepoAuditRight-size model intelligence to task complexity. Cut cost and latency.
Resilient ScrapingClassifieds Briefing, Lead GeneratorRandomized pacing, tiered browser strategies, and watchdogs that fail loudly on soft blocks instead of quietly rotting the cache.
TDD (Red-Green-Refactor)TALON, Market Monitor, Lead GeneratorTests are the specification, written before the code they specify.
Lazy LoadingSF-AssistantHandle massive codebases without memory overhead.
Zero-Dependency PWAFile Viewers, Apex Log Parser, DiegeistOffline-capable, installable, no framework, no server. From 1K-line file viewers to a 10K-line game.
Procedural GenerationDiegeistBSP dungeon generation, runtime audio synthesis via Web Audio API. Zero static assets.

Current Focus

Geospatial Intelligence: preparing TALON’s open beta across 14 western North Carolina counties at 1m LiDAR depth, a deliberate depth-over-breadth descope from earlier multi-state coverage. Runs on self-managed bare metal (Proxmox) for the compute headroom that serious geospatial processing actually demands.

Developer Tooling: evolving RepoAudit into a full-scope codebase intelligence platform. The same analysis patterns that scan for architecture quality can power onboarding tools, PR review automation, and technical debt tracking.

Hybrid AI: combining local models (Ollama) with cloud inference. Keep data private, use cloud when you need the better model.

Bidirectional Streaming: WebRTC, WebSockets, Server-Sent Events. Different architecture patterns for real-time experiences that traditional HTTP can’t do.