Paul Bratslavsky | formerly coding after thirty

I learned how to build MCPs from @kentcdodds, and it's a gift that keeps on giving. I built a local-first knowledge base using @strapijs, @tan_stack, and @ollama with Gemma 4. But if you need to use a frontier model like Claude for more power, just expose your tools and data via MCP.

Continuing to work on @strapijs form builder using @tan_stack AI under the hood. In this current example, I am using Gemma4 through @ollama, but you can also connect @AnthropicAI provider. Just added the ability to reference Strapi collections in form. This is still in alpha pre-release build.

New coding setup. Play piano while waiting for Claude.

Yes. But only if that is what you enjoy. The joy of knowing how things work under the hood. I use Suno to remix my songs, and I am continuing to learn guitar and piano. So I can play my song or the AI-generated song. It’s the same reason I still learn concepts behind software engineering. I want to understand and explain the code that Claude writes, even though I did not write it. But if you don't enjoy it, though. Then no. Become a plumber. Or a pilot, lol, that is what my friend is pivoting to. Before someone says, AI will replace you. Will AI also replace paying my taxes.

no

Don't sleep on TanStack AI! Genious video by Jack right here!

SF folks: we’re hosting a meetup @strapijs × @vercel × @better_auth tomorrow! If you’re a developer working on content apps, auth, or modern frontends, this one’s for you. 📍 @MuxHQ on Market (SF) 🗓 Tue, May 12 · 5:30–8:30 PM 3 quick talks by @paola3decampos @pierre_burgy and @MarcBaiza + networking RSVP link (Seats are limited.) luma.com/dx-meetup

I am cooking some more features. Bring your own AI, In my case using @ollama with Gemma 4 on my Mac, but you can use any other provider.

One of our core TanStack Start/Router team, @ChaponFlo, is looking for his next full-time remote position. Easily top 1% talent, highly skilled in perf, dev-facing tools, TS, full-stack, etc (including TanStack, obviously 😉) If hiring, DM him. If not, spread the word.

Been building local AI first applications. Love Gemma4. I am using these models gemma4-kb:latest and nomic-embed-text for embedings. I have Mac with 24gb, and both work surprisingly very capable. Using through @ollama with @tan_stack AI and of course my backend is @strapijs

How to make your engineering job application stand out (from the perspective of someone looking at hundreds of resumes): 1. Your resume should be one page. If you really need more space, link to a website. You don't need 10+ bullets for each job. 2. You will immediately stand out >90% of applications if you link a personal website that has some intentionality behind it. 3. If you are going to link your X, you might want to clean up your posts? Seems obvious but... people post some wild stuff. 4. You should link your GitHub. Please avoid doing a profile README that looks like a MySpace profile with the badges and images. I'm trying to look at code and your ability to build interesting ideas. 5. You should try to customize your application to the company. If you're applying to a startup, the courses you took in college probably don't matter as much. Maybe more if you're trying to make it through the ATS screening for FAANG. 6. I'm seeing a surprising number of resumes which don't talk about AI or agents at all. Software engineering is changing and it's a pretty fair assumption that you will be expected to learn or understand coding with AI for your job. That should be reflected on your resume and projects (and I'm not just saying this because I'm at Cursor). 7. Take your LinkedIn seriously. Most devs are here hanging out on X but surprisingly still most people will send around your LinkedIn internally. 8. Find ways to show your unique strengths/tastes/interests. It's nice to see people are smart, well-rounded, and thoughtful. Maybe this is a collection of books you enjoyed and why. Or some writing you've done. Or films you liked. At the end of the day, people want to work with other people they like and respect. If nothing else, it will be a good conversation starter ("oh I love [book] as well!"). 9. Do not use AI to write your cover letter or resume text. It's incredibly obvious, especially if you are applying to an AI company. You can still use it to ideate on ideas or phrases, but write it by hand (don't fall victim to the overused in-the-distribution-AI-phrases). See: /humanizer skill. 10. No photos on resumes. Save those for whatever you link out to. 11. Quality over quantity. 3 really good, thoughtful, detailed, interesting projects versus a wall of 27 AI-slop ones. Remember that hiring managers / recruiters are getting hundreds or thousands of applications for a role. They're not going to spend 20 minutes on every single application. You need to cut the cruft and get to the point. I hope this helps you stand out!

Is this a beginning of a from builder for @strapijs similar to WP Forms? Maybe. I needed to build something cool while testing out my product-design-skill for @claudeai 👉 github.com/PaulBratslavsk…

Here is how I been coding. How have you been coding. 1. Claude Desktop - Have Product design skill 2. Claude in Terminal - Pass the speck from product skill 3. Finally open VS Code with Claude to polish. Build 4 products MVP this way, and worked surprisingly well. I use @claudeai and in my mind, they won the AI dev journey race.

@virgilerietsch Haters will always hate.

I've been posting coding tips every day for the last 7 days, using ContentCopilot. Already so many "haters" lol Comments like : - if vibecoding is bad, why not code by hand ? - you're a Codex shill - vibecoding is bad, code by hand ! (strong statement) Fortunately there has been so much positive feedback. I think it's great signal.

Someone who is learning music, I needed an aid to help me make sense of things. Also, I am weird, I am learning 3 instruments at once. Guitar, Piano and Ableton Push. So needed a quick tool to help me visualize all notes/chords across the three instruments. @Ableton build with @claudeai

Is TanStack replacing React itself? No. But "redact" is an interesting experiment in seeing how much overhead is currently in React, and also pushing the limits of agentic coding. tannerlinsley.com/posts/projecti… (Personally I think it should have been called freeact, but that's just me)

Here is a demo of one that was build with little intervention from me. BTW, this is POC and if the idea makes sense, I will audit the code make sure it is worthy. Lol. Have to remind my self. Don't ship things you don't uderstand.

I created a SKILL to allow me to plan out ideas and then build them with @tan_stack and @strapijs still testing the skill but will share soon. Now, any product idea I have, I have Claude build POC. @AnthropicAI

@andrewchen Yep. That's the whole premise of my pivot: epicproduct.engineer/the-last-softw… Except I do think that there's a distinction between a technical Product Engineer and a nontechnical Product Manager. Both roles are still valuable. But the scarcity of implementation skills is decreasing.