@earnestamateur

Allen Brooks

@earnestamateurGreenville, SC, USJoined July 2026

15 years building software, most of it learned by watching it get built badly. Now building platforms solo (heavy Claude Code) at Lionshead.

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Lionshead Noteslionshead-notes.hashnode.dev11 posts

Invariant checks: the comment is the check you never wrote.

Twelve days ago I built a check that reads my company standards and asserts that every enforcement mechanism they name actually exists as code. Pointed at the repository where those standards are writ

1Aug 31 · 13 min readlionshead-notes.hashnode.dev

My retro proposed three fixes and built none of them. Its health check read fine the whole time.

Last Sunday I published a post about the agent fleet that builds my backlog. It ended with a section called "What I have not run," in which I said the retrospective pass was designed, was accepted, an

Aug 24 · 14 min readlionshead-notes.hashnode.dev

I handed my backlog to an agent fleet for ten days. Three of its safeguards were lying to me.

I have a launch with a date that does not move. I also have a job between eight and five, a two year old, and a four month old. Everything I build, I build around those. So the binding constraint is n

1Aug 10 · 14 min readlionshead-notes.hashnode.dev

Killing the long-lived tokens in my CI, one exchange at a time

A static API token stored in GitHub Secrets is a breach that has not happened yet. The timer is already running. You do not know how long the fuse is, because a long-lived token's fuse is however long

Aug 3 · 9 min readlionshead-notes.hashnode.dev

How do you know a passing check still works? Make it fail on purpose.

A feature makes money. A check protects it. Those are not the same job, and the difference is why checks rot. When you ship a feature, the market tells you fast whether it works. Someone signs up or t

Jul 31 · 6 min readlionshead-notes.hashnode.dev

Allen Brooks

About

Available for

Allen Brooks's blogs

Invariant checks: the comment is the check you never wrote.

My retro proposed three fixes and built none of them. Its health check read fine the whole time.

I handed my backlog to an agent fleet for ten days. Three of its safeguards were lying to me.

Killing the long-lived tokens in my CI, one exchange at a time

How do you know a passing check still works? Make it fail on purpose.

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Allen Brooks

About

Available for

Allen Brooks's blogs

Invariant checks: the comment is the check you never wrote.

My retro proposed three fixes and built none of them. Its health check read fine the whole time.

I handed my backlog to an agent fleet for ten days. Three of its safeguards were lying to me.

Killing the long-lived tokens in my CI, one exchange at a time

How do you know a passing check still works? Make it fail on purpose.