Idempotency Keys Don't Stop AI Agents From Doing Things TwiceHere's a refund tool that most teams would call safe: def issue_refund(order_id: str, amount_cents: int, note: str): key = sha256(f"{order_id}|{amount_cents}|{note}".encode()).hexdigest() retu15h ago · 10 min readsimplyexplained.hashnode.dev
LLMs Get Lost in Long Conversations. Here's When to Fix the Chat and When to Restart ItHere's a result worth knowing before your next long session with a coding assistant. Researchers took 600 tasks, including code generation and SQL, and delivered each one two ways: as one complete mes1d ago · 10 min readsimplyexplained.hashnode.dev
Tail Latency and Fan-Out: Why Your p99 Isn't a 1% ProblemHere's a quick question worth answering before you read on. Your profile service hits its target: 99% of requests finish in under 200 ms. The account page calls it, plus 39 other services that hit the2d ago · 10 min readsimplyexplained.hashnode.dev
How to Understand a New Codebase: Trace One Request, Not Every FileYou click PaymentGateway, hit Go to Definition, and land on an interface. Three classes implement it. Which one runs in production? Nothing on screen tells you. That small moment explains most of why 3d ago · 10 min readsimplyexplained.hashnode.dev
RAG Chunking: Why Chunk Size Is the Wrong KnobYou've swept chunk size from 256 to 1024 tokens. You tried 20% overlap, then 50%. You swapped in a semantic splitter. Your eval score moved a point and a half, and the answers that were wrong are most4d ago · 9 min readsimplyexplained.hashnode.dev