DevOps · Information Security · Software Engineering

Engineering concepts, explained for people who build with AI.

Prodogon is a reference guide to the concepts underneath the code your AI coding assistant hands you — the definitions, tutorials, and comparisons that are precise, example-driven, and safe to cite.

449 guides · 4 topics · 36 clusters · written answer-first for humans and AI search engines alike

New
What Is Agent Drift (and How Do You Catch It)? Why Does My Agent Ignore AGENTS.md? Why Is My Coding Agent Stuck in a Loop? Why Does My Agent Keep Editing the Wrong File? Why Does My Agent Say the Tests Pass When They Fail? Why Did My AI Coding Bill Spike? Jev AI: The Complete Guide to TypeSafe's Decision Model Laya AI: The Complete Guide to the Open-Source Decision Model

Guided journeys

Project-based paths for people who would rather build than read. Each one ends in something real — a live URL, a working login, a database you can restore — with every step linked to the guide that explains it. All journeys →

beginner · 2 weekends

Build and Ship Your First Web App With AI

A small web app running at a public URL that a friend can open on their phone, plus the repo it lives in.

16 min read → beginner · 1–2 weekends

Add Accounts and Login to Your App

Working signup and login, sessions that end when they should, and per-user data that another account cannot reach by changing an ID.

15 min read → beginner · 1 weekend

Keep Your App Online

An app that redeploys on every push, tells you when it goes down, shuts down cleanly, and can be rolled back in one command.

14 min read → intermediate · 2–3 weekends

Add a Database Without Regret

A schema you can change safely, migrations in version control, indexes built from real queries, and a backup you have actually restored.

16 min read → intermediate · 2 weekends

Debug and Refactor the Code You Didn't Write

A reproducible bug fix backed by a regression test, a safer refactor of a tangled module, and a codebase you can navigate without asking the assistant what it does.

15 min read → intermediate · 1–2 weekends

Run a Security Pass Before Real Users

A documented attack-surface inventory, every default AI security failure checked off or fixed, scanning in CI, and rotating credentials issued.

16 min read → intermediate · 2 weekends

Make Slow Work Reliable

Slow work moved off the request path into a job queue with retries, idempotency, a dead letter queue, and monitoring that notices a stuck worker.

15 min read → intermediate · 2 weekends

Add an AI Feature Without Adding an Attack Surface

An LLM feature in production with validated output, scoped credentials, injection defences, cost limits, and audit logging of every model-driven action.

16 min read → intermediate · 1 weekend

Serve Users in Asia Without the Round Trip

An app that answers Hong Kong and Singapore users from a nearby edge with a measured p95, not an assumption — and no mainland filing required.

15 min read → intermediate · 1 weekend

Give Your Coding Agent Its Own Sandbox

A coding agent that runs in an isolated workspace, without your credentials, with restricted network access — and a test that proves the boundary holds.

14 min read → beginner · 1 day

Find the Money in Your Cloud Bill

A smaller bill you can prove: the biggest line items identified, idle resources removed, the workload right-sized, and a before-and-after figure from two real invoices.

13 min read → intermediate · 1 day

Run Two Coding Agents Without Losing Work

Two agents working on one repository in parallel, each in its own worktree, with an explicit merge order and a test run on the combined result rather than on each branch.

13 min read →

Start here

One entry point per goal. Each begins with a pillar guide and then walks into the guides that matter next.

Jev and Laya, end to end

Two decision-model pillars: what each one is, what it costs, where it fits, and how to run it in production.

Start with Jev AI: The Complete Guide to TypeSafe's Decision Model →

Add fast decisions to your AI app

Replace fragile JSON parsing and extra LLM calls with typed decisions: what Jev, Laya, and Clef do, how to wire them in, and how to prove they are right.

Start with What Is a Decision Model? Jev, Laya, and Typed Answers Instead of Parsed Prose →

Build your first app with AI

Go from prompting an assistant to a codebase you understand: the workflow, the spec, and the review habit.

Start with Working With AI Coding Agents: The Complete Workflow From Prompt to Production →

Ship it to production

The checklist between "it works on my machine" and a deploy you can repeat, roll back, and afford.

Start with Deploying AI-Generated Apps to Production: A Vibecoder's Checklist →

Secure what you shipped

The failures your assistant ships by default — injection, missing access control, hardcoded secrets — and how to close them.

Start with InfoSec for Vibecoders: Every Security Concept Your AI-Generated Code Gets Wrong →

Run containers and Kubernetes

Containers are easy; running them reliably is not. Learn what the cluster does before your assistant provisions one.

Start with Kubernetes for AI Builders: Run What Your Assistant Generates Without Wrecking Production →

Understand the machine you deploy to

No prior knowledge assumed: what the components do, how fast each tier of memory is, and how to size a server.

Start with Hardware for AI Builders: How the Machine Your Code Runs On Actually Works →

Explore every guide

Every topic on the site, mapped into clusters. Pick the one that matches what your AI assistant is generating right now.

DevOps

CI/CD, GitOps, Kubernetes, IaC, observability, and running software reliably.

158 guides →

Running Agents in Production

Agents as a service: CI jobs, staging access, monitoring, runtimes, and a runbook for when one goes wrong.

CI/CD & Delivery

Push code, have it tested and deployed automatically, and know how to undo it.

Containers & Kubernetes

What runs your app, what orchestrates it, and what your assistant generates when you say "deploy".

Kubernetes Cost & Scaling

Autoscaling, right-sizing, and upgrades — plus the line items that make a cluster cost more than the app it runs.

k3s & Single-Server Kubernetes

Real Kubernetes on one cheap server: install it, deploy to it, then run a database and GitOps on the same node.

Infrastructure as Code

Infrastructure described in Git — and the generated Terraform plans that almost delete production.

Deploying & Hosting

Rolling, blue-green, and canary releases, plus the proxy and CDN layer in front of them.

Reliability & Background Jobs

The unhappy path the AI doesn't write: retries, queues, graceful shutdown, and health checks.

Observability & Monitoring

Knowing your site is down before your users do, and what the reliability vocabulary actually means.

Cloud & Cost

Choosing a provider, running on free tiers, and stopping the bill from growing faster than the app.

Hosting for Asia & China Compliance

ICP filing and what it does not cover, Hong Kong versus the mainland, and choosing a region for users in APAC.

Diagnose a Failing Deploy

The symptoms you paste into a search box: a build that only fails in CI, a site that went slow, a container that restarts, a 504.

Information Security

OWASP, prompt injection, non-human identities, secrets, supply chains, and the attacks AI-generated code ships by default.

96 guides →

Securing the Agent

Skills, tools, and permissions are the attack surface now: what an agent can be told to run, and what it can reach when it runs it.

Securing AI Features

Prompt injection, MCP servers, and over-scoped agent credentials — the attack surface the moment your app calls a model.

Kubernetes Security

The cluster your assistant configured is open by default. Close it: RBAC, network policy, pod security, and secrets.

Authentication & Identity

Login, sessions, tokens, OAuth, and the ownership check your AI skipped.

Web Vulnerabilities

The OWASP mainstays that keep appearing in generated CRUD apps, one by one.

Secrets & Supply Chain

Leaked keys, hallucinated packages, and the trust you extend to every dependency.

Threats & Defense

The failures that reach production, and the frameworks used to reason about them.

Software Engineering

Vibe coding, productive AI habits, spec-driven development, testing, databases, Git, and building systems that don't fall over.

172 guides →

Agentic Coding Operations

The layer above generation: skills, standards, review packets, and keeping a long agent run on task.

Productive AI Coding Mindset

Stay motivated, build a focused routine, recover from messy builds, and keep ownership when AI writes the code.

Working With AI Agents

Choose an agent, write a spec it can follow, review every diff, and coordinate more than one at a time.

Debugging & Refactoring AI Code

How to fix code you didn't write, find the change that broke it, and stop the debt from compounding.

Databases

Why the app is fast with 50 rows and slow with 50,000 — indexes, transactions, migrations, and backups.

Consistency & Scale

Locks, deadlocks, rebuild storms, and coordination across services — plus the read paths that go stale and the decisions that decide how far data spreads.

APIs & Backend

The patterns generated endpoints quietly omit: rate limits, idempotency, caching, and gateways.

Testing & Code Quality

The fundamentals no assistant will teach you: tests that catch regressions, linting that stays green, debt you can see.

Git & Collaboration

Version control, merges, rebases, and committing in a way the next person can read.

Jev: The Hosted Decision Model

TypeSafe's Jev for routing, triage, and guardrails: what it is, what it costs, and how to use it safely.

Laya: Local Decision Models

Run typed decisions on your own hardware: Laya's checkpoints, setup, fine-tuning, MCP server, and security boundary.

Decision Model Integration & Evaluation

Choosing between providers, adding a decision layer to an app, evaluating it, and defending it from prompt injection.

AI Coding Operations

Running agents as tools rather than toys: rules files, MCP servers, sandboxing, context, cost, and parallel agents.

Hardware & Machines

How the machine under your code works: processors, memory, storage, GPUs, and the servers you rent.

23 guides →

How a Computer Works

The four components, the latency ladder underneath them, and the units that make a spec sheet readable.

GPUs & AI Accelerators

Why AI runs on graphics chips, what VRAM decides, and when a GPU is the wrong purchase.

Servers & Rented Machines

A vCPU is not a core, a server is not a bigger PC, and the machine you rent is shared with strangers.

Performance & Sizing

The numbers that decide how a machine feels: the latency ladder, cores versus threads, memory sizing, and egress.

Pillar guides

Curated hubs that tie a cluster of guides together. Read one end to end, or use it as a starting map.

Start here

The four hubs to read first, whatever you're building.

Working With AI Coding Agents: The Complete Workflow From Prompt to Production

Choosing an agent, writing specs it can follow, reviewing its diffs, and debugging what you didn't write. Every guide in the AI coding workflow, in one place. 30+ linked guides.

14 min read

DevOps for AI Builders: What You Need to Know When Your AI Writes the Infra

Your AI coding assistant writes CI/CD pipelines, Dockerfiles, and Terraform. Here's every DevOps concept you need to understand so it doesn't burn production down. 60+ linked guides.

12 min read

Software Engineering for AI Builders: The Concepts Your Coding Assistant Won't Teach You

Your AI writes the code, but it doesn't teach you testing, architecture, databases, or Git. Learn every software engineering concept you need to go from vibecoding to shipping. 45+ linked guides.

15 min read

InfoSec for Vibecoders: Every Security Concept Your AI-Generated Code Gets Wrong

Your AI coding assistant ships SQL injection, exposed secrets, and broken access control by default. Learn every infosec concept you need to catch these before they hit production. 40+ linked guides.

14 min read

Jev & Laya

Two decision-model pillars: the hosted option, the local option, and the comparison between them.

Jev AI: The Complete Guide to TypeSafe's Decision Model

Jev AI explained: what it is, what it returns, pricing, latency, use cases, setup, limitations, and how it compares with Laya, Clef, and OpenAI.

12 min read

Laya AI: The Complete Guide to the Open-Source Decision Model

Laya AI explained: checkpoints, router, local setup, speed, cost, fine-tuning, security, and how it compares with Jev and other decision models.

11 min read

Jev vs Laya vs Clef: Which Decision Model Should You Use?

A practical comparison of Jev, Laya, Clef, and OpenAI's Decisions API: hosting, license, modality, price, latency, and when each one wins.

9 min read

What Is a Decision Model? Jev, Laya, and Typed Answers Instead of Parsed Prose

A decision model returns a typed choice, score, or yes/no probability instead of generated text. How Jev, Laya, and Clef work, and when to use one.

9 min read

Specialist clusters

Deep dives into the areas where AI-generated code fails most often.

Kubernetes for AI Builders: Run What Your Assistant Generates Without Wrecking Production

Your AI writes Kubernetes manifests it doesn't understand. Learn the objects, the failure modes, the cost traps, and the security gaps — with every linked guide.

14 min read

k3s for Vibecoders: Kubernetes on One Cheap Server, Without the Cloud Bill

k3s is real Kubernetes in a single binary that runs on a $6 VPS. Learn what it bundles, how to deploy your AI-built app to it, and when a managed cluster is still the better call.

12 min read

Hardware for AI Builders: How the Machine Your Code Runs On Actually Works

A zero-jargon guide to computer hardware for people who build with AI: what a CPU, RAM, SSD, GPU, and data-centre server actually do, and how to size a machine for your app.

14 min read

Kubernetes Security for AI Builders: Hardening the Cluster Your Assistant Configured

A default cluster trusts everything inside it. Learn RBAC, network policies, pod security, Secrets, and image hardening — the Kubernetes security work your AI's manifests skip.

13 min read

Deploying AI-Generated Apps to Production: A Vibecoder's Checklist

Your AI wrote the app. Now here's every step between 'it works on my machine' and 'it's running in production.' Deployment, monitoring, secrets, databases, and the checklist your AI didn't include.

10 min read

Databases for AI Builders: Why Your AI-Generated App Gets Slow and Loses Data

Your AI writes working SQL that fails at scale. Learn indexing, the N+1 problem, transactions, connection pools, migrations, backups, and consistency — with linked guides for each.

13 min read

Authentication and Authorization for AI Builders: Who You Are, and What You're Allowed to Touch

Login, sessions, JWTs, OAuth, passkeys, and the object-level checks your AI assistant skips. Every auth concept a vibecoder needs, with a linked guide for each.

12 min read

Securing AI Agents and LLM Features: The Attack Surface You Just Added

Prompt injection, MCP servers, non-human identities, and hallucinated packages — every security concept that applies once your app has an LLM feature or an AI agent. With linked guides.

13 min read

The 15 Security Failures Your AI Coding Assistant Ships by Default

AI coding assistants default to SQL injection, hardcoded secrets, missing access controls, and 12 other security failures. Here's every one, with the fix and the linked guide.

12 min read

Background Jobs and Scheduled Tasks: The Part of Your App Nobody Monitors

Cron jobs fail silently, queues lose messages, and retries duplicate work. Learn scheduling, queues, dead letters, backoff, idempotency, and monitoring — with linked guides.

12 min read

How to Choose a Cloud Provider for Your AI-Generated App

Your AI writes the app. The cloud runs it. Compare every major provider — Big 3, PaaS, and budget VPS — by cost, complexity, and use case. Decision guide for vibecoders deploying AI-generated apps.

16 min read

Recent guides

  1. New What Is Agent Drift (and How Do You Catch It)? Engineering Oct 24
  2. New Why Does My Agent Ignore AGENTS.md? Engineering Oct 24
  3. Why Is My Coding Agent Stuck in a Loop? Engineering Oct 24
  4. Why Does My Agent Keep Editing the Wrong File? Engineering Oct 24
  5. Why Does My Agent Say the Tests Pass When They Fail? Engineering Oct 24
  6. Why Did My AI Coding Bill Spike? Engineering Oct 24
  7. Jev AI: The Complete Guide to TypeSafe's Decision Model Engineering Oct 21
  8. Laya AI: The Complete Guide to the Open-Source Decision Model Engineering Oct 21

How to use this reference

Prodogon is a free, independent reference. Every guide is written answer-first, so a single section can be read, quoted, or cited on its own — whether you arrived from a search engine or your assistant did.

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Who writes it, how the guides are sourced, and why it exists for people building with AI coding assistants.

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