# Alan Varghese > Engineer, tinkerer, and occasional artist. A personal portfolio of software projects and writing about engineering, design, and building things. The links below point to static Markdown versions of the public content. Posts reflect their publication dates. Project descriptions and links are maintained in the project archive. ## Overview - [Home](https://alanvarghese.me/index.md): Introduction, current projects, recent writing, collaborations, and contact links. - [Project archive](https://alanvarghese.me/archive/index.md): Published projects, descriptions, technology, and demo or source links. - [Writing index](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/index.md): Published posts, dates, summaries, and topics. ## Project writeups - [Seisra](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/seisra/index.md): An always-on, personal squad of agents. A little team that keeps things moving, even when I step away. - [BumperWars](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/bumperwars/index.md): A multiplayer bumper-car derby on floating islands. Stay on the platform. Make everyone else fall. - [OpenAPI Editor](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/openapi-editor/index.md): Design OpenAPI 3.0 documents with visual editors for routes, schemas, and security. Runs in the browser, saves locally, and works offline. - [PG Compass](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/pg-compass/index.md): A focused PostgreSQL desktop viewer for browsing rows, inspecting schemas, running SQL, and exploring table relationships. - [Junto](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/junto/index.md): Pass-the-phone party games, from Truth or Dare to Imposter. Install it as a PWA and keep playing offline. - [Scratchpad](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/scratchpad/index.md): A native Windows notepad with Markdown styled as you type. Plain files, autosave, search, and crash recovery, built in Rust with GPUI. - [Padlock](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/padlock/index.md): A browser-based password and passphrase generator with four generation methods, adjustable options, and password strength estimates. - [Kards](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/kards/index.md): A browser-based kanban board with multiple boards, draggable tasks, and local saving. Built with vanilla JavaScript. - [TextWeave](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/textweave/index.md): Weave words into pyramids, diamonds, and other line-by-line text patterns. A small vanilla JavaScript experiment. - [F.R.I.D.A.Y](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/friday/index.md): A modular Python desktop assistant whose commands live in individual skills. Includes coin tosses, dice rolls, date and time, and a magic 8-ball. - [Ninja Name](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/ninja-name/index.md): Turn the letters in your name into a ninja alias using either of two character-to-syllable mappings. - [Pazz](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/pazz/index.md): An experimental Python command-line password manager with a local SQLite vault, encrypted entries, clipboard access, and password generators. - [Sticki](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/sticki/index.md): A grid of pastel sticky notes in your browser. Add, edit, and delete short notes, with changes saved locally. - [Ticker](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/ticker/index.md): A browser stopwatch with pause, resume, and lap flags. See total elapsed time alongside the current lap and previous splits. - [username-generator](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/username-generator/index.md): Generate username ideas from pronounceable made-up words or adjective-and-noun combinations, entirely in the browser. - [Chat Games Bot](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/chat-games-bot/index.md): Conversation starters for Discord and Telegram: Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, Would You Rather, and more, delivered by Python bots. - [Fancy Fonts Bot](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/fancy-fonts-bot/index.md): An inline Telegram bot that turns text into 27 Unicode display styles. Pick a result and send the styled text directly into a chat. - [Fancy Fonts Generator](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/fancy-fonts-generator/index.md): Turn text into more than 50 Unicode styles, with live conversion and support for custom character mappings. - [Inspiring Quotes](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/inspiring-quotes/index.md): A small quote generator that pairs motivational quotes with their authors. Reload or press Enter for another. - [Network Bandwidth Monitor](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/network-bandwidth-monitor/index.md): A small Python and Tkinter desktop utility that displays uploaded, downloaded, and total network traffic. Originally built for a capped connection. - [Screen Color Picker](https://alanvarghese.me/projects/screen-color-picker/index.md): Point at any pixel and press Ctrl+Alt+C to copy its hex color. A Python utility for Windows that also prints RGB values and coordinates. ## Writing - [Unlearn faster](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/unlearn/index.md): 2026-03-03. When I started engineering seriously, I carried a lot of "correct" patterns in my head. - [The real unfair advantage is focus](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/the-real-unfair-advantage-is-focus/index.md): 2026-02-20. "unfair" advantages are often associated with things that are external. Better network, funding, timing. But in practice, the biggest one I've seen is focus. - [Vibe-engineering an OpenAPI compatible API authoring tool](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/vibe-engineering-an-openapi-compatible-api-authoring-tool/index.md): 2026-02-08. As an engineering lead, I spent most of my time architecting systems, writing issues, and translating business requirements into clean technical requirements which… - [You aren't qualified until you've lived the role](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/unqualified/index.md): 2026-01-15. We overestimate preparation. - [Race conditions in async code](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/race-conditions-in-async-code/index.md): 2025-07-16. What do you think is wrong with this particular block of code? - [Your website has a carbon footprint too.](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/carbon-footprint-of-web/index.md): 2025-06-01. Every page load burns electricity — servers, networks, your user's device. That electricity usually comes from fossil fuels. An average webpage generates ~0.5g of CO2… - [Version control your motivation](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/version-control-your-motivation/index.md): 2025-05-27. Look, I’m not going to pretend like I’ve cracked the code to productivity or motivation. I’ve abandoned more projects than I’ve finished - ideas that started with… - [Reducing blast radius when designing APIs](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/reducing-blast-radius-when-designing-apis/index.md): 2025-04-29. I’ve been designing APIs for almost a decade now and one of the things that I frequently see developers get wrong is with designing APIs that are stiff and tightly… - [Your users aren't IP addresses.](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/your-users-arent-ip-addresses/index.md): 2025-03-11. Let’s get this out of the way first: - [Auth is a product, not a feature.](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/auth-is-a-product-not-a-feature/index.md): 2025-02-23. “Just generate a token and check it later, right?” - [Don't be a ticket engineer.](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/dont-be-a-ticket-engineer/index.md): 2025-01-19. Imagine one day, you’re scrolling through your Jira tickets, and the latest ones are marked as resolved by AI. Why wouldn’t it be? If it had access to the code,… - [Accessibility is UX.](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/accessibility-is-ux/index.md): 2024-12-08. I’ve worked with many developers over the course of several years and there’s a recurring misconception I keep noticing: most people still think accessibility is only… - [It thinks, therefore?](https://alanvarghese.me/blog/it-thinks-therefore/index.md): 2023-12-29. If a system behaves indistinguishably from a conscious being, should we call it conscious? ## Optional - [Colophon](https://alanvarghese.me/colophon/index.md): How the site is designed, built, and served. - [Quiet Utility](https://alanvarghese.me/design.md): The design system used by this site. - [Portfolio palette](https://alanvarghese.me/palette.md): The site’s adaptation of Quiet Utility colours.