lucavallinThe blog
Long-form notes on platform engineering, cloud-native infrastructure, the Linux kernel and the messy reality of running AI workloads. Written in the open, occasionally opinionated.
How I Actually Use Claude Code
My Claude Code setup: CLAUDE.md as a contract, tests and CI as gates, the skills, plugins and MCP servers that earn their place, and how to build the same.
More writing
AI Engineering for Developers
A tour through AI engineering for developers who already know how to ship software. Fourteen chapters, no LinkedIn voice, no slow warm-up. We will go from 'what is a foundation model' to 'how do you run agents in production on Google Cloud' without skipping the parts that matter.
Platform Engineering End-to-End
Platform engineering is more than DevOps with a portal. This post walks the full arc of the discipline end to end: why platforms exist, how to build and operate them, how to manage the messy stakeholder politics, and what success actually looks like. Grounded in Fournier and Nowland's book and a few years of doing this on real systems.
Google Cloud Networking 101: The Comprehensive TLDR
A comprehensive but quick walkthrough of everything you need to know about GCP networking: VPCs, subnets, routing, firewalls, Shared VPC, GKE networking, load balancing, Cloud NAT, hybrid connectivity, VPC Service Controls, DNS, packet inspection, and how to operate all of it. Written for engineers who need a solid mental model in 15 minutes.
Containers Are Not Automatically Secure
Containers changed how we package and ship software, but they did not rewrite the basic security rules. Trust boundaries, privilege, and attack surface are all still there. That was probably the main thing I learned while digging into container security, partly from Liz Rice's Container Security and partly from spending time with the Linux pieces underneath.