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AI Coding Foundations

How AI coding assistants really work — context, retrieval, models — and how to set up a workflow that gets good code.

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What Your AI Coding Assistant Actually Sees: Context, Retrieval, and Why It Invents APIs

A developer-level look at how coding assistants assemble context, retrieve code, and why they confidently call functions that don't exist.

Alex Ryder, a staff software engineer · 9 min read

Setting Up an AI-Assisted Coding Environment That Earns Its Keep in 2026

A concrete setup for editor, agent, context files, and guardrails so AI speeds you up instead of quietly adding risk.

Alex Ryder, a staff software engineer · 9 min read

Picking the Right Model for the Coding Task: Speed, Quality, and Cost

How to match model tiers to real coding work — completion, refactors, agentic loops — without overpaying or waiting on the wrong tool.

Alex Ryder, a staff software engineer · 8 min read