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Personal notes, deep dives, and experiments outside the newsletter cadence.

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Getting BYOK Working with Ollama and Gemma 4

GitHub Copilot CLI now supports BYOK: bring your own model via Ollama, Azure AI Foundry, Anthropic, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Here's what I learned getting it working with a local Gemma 4 instance.

Andrea Griffiths GitHub Copilot • Copilot CLI • BYOK • Ollama • Gemma • AI • Developer Tools
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Adversarial Code Review with GitHub Models

AI agents write code. Some of it works. When you ask them to check their own work, they rationalize the bugs instead of catching them. So I built a second agent that watches the first.

Andrea Griffiths Proof Agent • AI Agents • Code Review • GitHub Actions • GitHub Models
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I Gave My Newsletter a Voice (Literally)

I added a microphone button to my newsletter's chat widget. Click it and you're in a real-time voice conversation with an AI agent that knows every issue I've ever written. Here's how LiveKit, Azure Speech Services, and RAG make it work.

Andrea Griffiths LiveKit • Voice AI • RAG • GitHub Models • Azure Speech Services • Python • FastAPI
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GitHub Actions: The Stuff Nobody Tells You

I work at GitHub and use Actions every day. I've also debugged YAML at 2am and pushed way too many commits just to fix a conditional. Here's what I wish someone had told me on day one.

Andrea Griffiths GitHub Actions • CI/CD • Developer Tools • Fundamentals
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A Rapper Tweeted About GitHub, So I Built Him a Learn-to-Code Repo from My Phone

Meek Mill tweeted about GitHub. It was the middle of the night, so I messaged my AI agent from my phone. It created the repo, assigned Copilot coding agent to build it, and shipped the whole thing while I watched. Here's what happened and what's new in Copilot CLI.

Andrea Griffiths GitHub Copilot • Copilot CLI • Copilot Coding Agent • Open Source • Developer Tools • Getting Started
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I Asked My AI Agent to Update My E-Ink Display. It Just Did It.

I told my AI agent what I wanted on my TRMNL display. It set up the cron job, figured out the webhook format, and started pushing daily priorities the next morning.

Andrea Griffiths TRMNL • AI Agents • OpenClaw • GitHub Copilot • E-Ink • Developer Tools
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Quantum Computing: The Compute Power Behind 'Curing Cancer'

I'm a breast cancer survivor. When people ask what I want from AI, I don't say better autocomplete. I say cure cancer. That question led me somewhere unexpected: quantum computing.

Andrea Griffiths Quantum Computing • Drug Discovery • Cancer Research • Google Willow • IBM • Caltech
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An Experiment in Voice: What Happens When AI Learns to Write Like You

I fine-tuned Qwen3 8B on three years of my own writing using Unsloth. The model learned how I write. Not how I think. Here's what that difference taught me about what voice actually is.

Andrea Griffiths AI • Fine-tuning • Unsloth • Qwen • LoRA • Open Source • Developer Tools
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Giving My AI Assistant a Long-Term Memory

Every AI session starts fresh. No context, no continuity. I built a hybrid memory system with Supermemory, local SQLite, and a static markdown file so my assistant Zo remembers who I am across every channel.

Andrea Griffiths AI • Supermemory • MCP • OpenClaw • Zo Computer • Memory • Developer Tools
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OpenClaw Just Passed React. Here's What the GitHub Star Leaderboard Actually Looks Like.

An open-source AI agent that's four months old just passed React in GitHub stars. I pulled the data on the top 20 most-starred repos to see what the leaderboard actually looks like.

Andrea Griffiths Open Source • GitHub • AI • Data Analysis • OpenClaw
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Cleaning Up Workflow Logic with GitHub Actions' New case Function

How GitHub Actions' new case function replaced nested conditionals in a real workflow and made the logic readable again.

Andrea Griffiths GitHub Actions • Automation • YAML • Developer Experience • Workflows
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Your AI Ships Code While You Sleep. Who Maintains It When You Wake?

People are waking up to working code they didn't write. AI coding agents build features autonomously, but who handles the growing maintenance debt? Here's what happens when coding agents and maintenance workflows collide.

Andrea Griffiths AI • GitHub Copilot • Automation • Code Maintenance • Developer Productivity • Ralph • Claude Code
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Building an AI-Powered Guest Automation with the Copilot SDK

How I built a GitHub Actions workflow that reads guest submissions and generates personalized welcome messages using the Copilot SDK. The key isn't replacing human attention—it's giving yourself a better starting point.

Andrea Griffiths AI • GitHub Actions • Automation • Copilot SDK • Developer Experience
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Why AI Discoverability Matters: Optimizing Your Website for This Generation of Search

The way people discover content has fundamentally shifted. When ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity answer questions about your expertise, does your website show up? Here's how to make your content AI-accessible.

Andrea Griffiths AI • SEO • Developer Advocacy • Web Development • Structured Data
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How to share what you know (without becoming an influencer)

If you're anything like me, you've talked yourself out of posting something useful at least a dozen times this year.

Andrea Griffiths Developer Advocacy • Content Creation • Technical Writing • Open Source • Knowledge Sharing • Blogging • Developer Community • Career Advice • Beginner Developer