Journal
Journal of decisions, milestones, and lessons learned.
Recent Entries
Chronological log of engineering milestones.
Private Beta Preparation
MEX ARGUS is being prepared for a small private beta. Focus is on stability, logging, and access control.
Private beta means real users. Logging and error reporting need to be production-grade before inviting anyone.
Calendar Module Stabilized
Calendar-dependent scheduling logic in ARGUS now handles timezone offsets and DST transitions without drift.
Timezone handling is easy to get wrong silently. Unit tests with fixed timestamps and explicit offsets caught three bugs before release.
Portfolio valuation restored using confirmed public endpoint. Statistics synchronization fixed.
Public endpoints can change without notice. Always validate response schemas before production use.
Migrated web frontend to shadcn/ui with full dark mode support and accessibility improvements.
Component libraries accelerate delivery, but only if the abstraction matches the mental model.
MEX API integration switched to api.mex.live. HMAC SHA256 auth operational.
Network reliability requires explicit retry logic. Exponential backoff is not optional.
Portfolio Website Created
Launched the public-facing portfolio at d3f4lt0.dev. Minimal structure, focused on project documentation and engineering notes.
A minimal site is easier to maintain than a complex one. Start with structure, add personality later.
Finance Module Redesign
ARGUS finance module rewritten to support multiple quote assets and portfolio rebalancing calculations.
Separating valuation logic from persistence made the module testable in isolation.
Fingerprint Detection Experiments
Initial experiments with browser fingerprint collection using Selenium. Compared Navigator and Screen APIs across profiles.
Browser fingerprints vary more between browser versions than between user profiles.
Architecture Rewrite
ARGUS backend reorganized into collector, indicators, decision, and execution engines. Each engine is independently testable.
Explicit boundaries between engines made it easier to replace components without breaking the rest of the system.
Files Module Completed
ARGUS file handling module finished. Handles configuration loading, log rotation, and artifact cleanup.
Keep file paths relative to a known root. Absolute paths break when the deployment environment changes.
First Version of phantom-fetch
Released initial version of phantom-fetch with Playwright wrapper, custom user agent, and JSON output.
Stealth is not a single setting. It is a combination of headers, viewport, timezone, and behavior patterns.
Initial Architecture for http2-inspector
Designed the frame parsing pipeline for http2-inspector. Chose a streaming approach to avoid loading entire captures into memory.
Protocol analyzers should process data as a stream. Binary captures can exceed available memory.
Prototype of anti-bot-engine
Built a working prototype of the signal collection layer. Captures mouse movement, timing, and interaction patterns.
Behavioral signals are noisy. Thresholds need tuning per deployment, not hardcoded globally.
Research for quantum-stealth-kernel
Started kernel-level research into process enumeration and filesystem visibility. Studied syscall table hooking and dentry caching.
Kernel research moves slower than user space. Documentation and reproducible test environments are essential.
Started phantom-fetch
Began work on a headless content fetcher after repeated issues with detectable automation in research workflows.
Existing headless browsers are detectable by default. Stealth requires explicit configuration, not just a flag.
Started tls-proxy
Started tls-proxy as a minimal alternative to heavy ingress controllers. Initial focus on cipher suite control and mTLS.
TLS configuration is surprisingly subtle. Explicit cipher suite lists prevent fallback to weak defaults.
Started MEX ARGUS
Began development of a personal trading intelligence platform for the MEX exchange. Initial scope: portfolio tracking and candlestick collection.
Define the data model before writing the collector. Schema drift is expensive to fix later.