Notes, projects, and updates on AI — by mingrath. A veterinary neurosurgeon turned AI engineer, into computational neuroscience, local LLMs, and open-source AI tools.https://mingrath.com/https://mingrath.com/local-models-mac/https://mingrath.com/local-models-mac/Local models are trending, but not everyone has the resources to try running one. Two easy Mac apps to get a light-touch feel for what local models actually are and what they're good for: Handy for local speech-to-text, and Cotypist for local-model-powered predictive typing.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentlocal modelsMacAI toolsproductivityhttps://mingrath.com/no-mistakes/https://mingrath.com/no-mistakes/Notes from Kun Chen's 'L8 Principal's Agentic Engineering Workflow' video: the bottleneck in AI coding has moved from producing code to verifying it. A tour of the tools built around that idea — Lavish for planning, No Mistakes as a QA pipeline, Good Night Have Fun for long-running agents, Treehouse for worktrees, First Mate as an orchestrator, Axi for token efficiency, and a terminal-first setup with WezTerm + tmux.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & DevelopmentAI agentscoding workflowterminalproductivityhttps://mingrath.com/fable-as-orchestrator-opus-codex-sonnet/https://mingrath.com/fable-as-orchestrator-opus-codex-sonnet/Fable just came back, but right now you can't use it to write code directly, and you only get 50% of the usage limit — so you need a workaround. I found one on X: make Fable the main agent that breaks work down and hands tasks off to Opus, Codex, and Sonnet. Tried it, and it works well.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentfableclaude-codeorchestrationmulti-agentcodexsonnetopusai-toolinghttps://mingrath.com/the-bitter-lesson-and-over-engineering/https://mingrath.com/the-bitter-lesson-and-over-engineering/Rich Sutton's 2019 essay argues that methods scaling with raw computation always beat cramming in human knowledge. Reading it in 2026, the same pattern is everywhere in AI tooling — too many skills, too much MCP, over-complex agents. The real skill is balance.Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentthe-bitter-lessonaiover-engineeringagentsmcpscalinghttps://mingrath.com/astro-7-is-here/https://mingrath.com/astro-7-is-here/Astro 7.0 just dropped, and this release is all about speed — the team rewrote the core internals in Rust. Here's why I'm excited and planning to migrate my projects.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentastroweb-devtoolinghttps://mingrath.com/cursor-coming-to-mobile/https://mingrath.com/cursor-coming-to-mobile/Cursor, the AI code editor I live in, is coming to mobile. Driving agents from my phone might change where and how I work.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentcursorai-codingmobiletoolshttps://mingrath.com/building-a-custom-obsidian-extension/https://mingrath.com/building-a-custom-obsidian-extension/I went live to teach, and somewhere in the middle I ended up building a custom Obsidian extension for the graph view instead. Here's why hacking on your own tools beats just using them.Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMobsidianpkmsecond-brainopen-sourcehttps://mingrath.com/how-your-brain-finds-a-memory/https://mingrath.com/how-your-brain-finds-a-memory/There's a legendary 1981 paper that models how your brain recalls a memory from just a few clues. I built a little visualization of it — and it turns out to be the perfect mental model for building a second brain.Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMsecond-brainpkmneuroscienceknowledge-graphhttps://mingrath.com/building-a-second-brain-in-the-ai-era/https://mingrath.com/building-a-second-brain-in-the-ai-era/I've wanted to get into the 'second brain' idea for years and bounced off it every single time. Here's my honest take on what it actually is, where its weak spots are, and how to build one that's worth keeping in the age of AI.Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMsecond-brainpkmobsidianaihttps://mingrath.com/trying-orcarouter-fusion/https://mingrath.com/trying-orcarouter-fusion/After losing access to Fable 5, I went hunting for an alternative and found OrcaRouter Fusion — a tool that fuses a panel of LLMs instead of relying on one solo model. I benchmarked it, and fusion scored higher than every single model on its own.Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentllmmodel-routingbenchmarktoolshttps://mingrath.com/super-ai-engineer-hackathon-wins/https://mingrath.com/super-ai-engineer-hackathon-wins/A month into the Super AI Engineer camp, with first runner-up at an AIoT health hackathon and second runner-up at a coffee-chain hackathon — and what that month actually taught me.Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & MilestonesSuper AIhackathonAIoTmilestonehttps://mingrath.com/estimating-vram-for-local-models/https://mingrath.com/estimating-vram-for-local-models/Before you try to run a flagship coding model on your own machine, a memory calculator tells you the real number — and shows why Mixture-of-Experts makes local deployment far more realistic.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentlocal LLMVRAMMoEvLLMhttps://mingrath.com/teaching-literature-review-with-cli/https://mingrath.com/teaching-literature-review-with-cli/I ran a session on doing literature review from the command line — sure it would fly over people's heads, and surprised by how the room's perception shifted from intimidated to wanting to try.Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & MilestonesCLIresearchliterature reviewtalkhttps://mingrath.com/switching-to-pi-and-chinese-models/https://mingrath.com/switching-to-pi-and-chinese-models/You don't have to lock yourself into one model. With open gateways like Pi, thClaws, and OpenCode you can switch freely — and good planning saves far more tokens than raw model power.Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentpillmrate-limitsplanningworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/scheduling-content-a-month-ahead/https://mingrath.com/scheduling-content-a-month-ahead/A content calendar lets me write and schedule a month of posts in advance — a simple workflow shift that takes the daily pressure off anyone running a page.Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMcontent calendarschedulingsocial mediaworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/building-a-local-spots-map-app/https://mingrath.com/building-a-local-spots-map-app/On a day off I started a small map app for Nakhon Phanom — nearby local spots with live open/closed status, distance, and fresh updates, the kind of guide I always wished my hometown had.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentside projectmap applocalNakhon Phanomhttps://mingrath.com/skills-for-real-engineers/https://mingrath.com/skills-for-real-engineers/I spent a day running Matt Pocock's skill set and it just clicked. These skills are built to fix the real pains of working with a coding agent — it doesn't get you, it talks too much, the code breaks, and your codebase turns into a ball of mud. Here's the grouped rundown plus a TL;DR.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentclaude-codeskillsagentsopen-sourcehttps://mingrath.com/huawei-cloud-ai-developer-cert/https://mingrath.com/huawei-cloud-ai-developer-cert/I just earned the HCCDA-AI certification — a small milestone, but a good excuse to reflect on why structured cloud-AI fundamentals are worth the study even for a self-taught builder.Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & MilestonescertificationcloudAImilestonehttps://mingrath.com/thclaws-fast-terminal-coding/https://mingrath.com/thclaws-fast-terminal-coding/thClaws is a new terminal coding tool written entirely in Rust — open-source, multi-provider, and fast enough that switching models is effortless.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentthclawsrustopen-sourceterminalllmhttps://mingrath.com/training-a-parasite-egg-detector/https://mingrath.com/training-a-parasite-egg-detector/I thought I'd left fecal smears behind when I left the clinic — but here I am again, this time training an object-detection model to spot parasite eggs from microscope images.Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentvet-aiobject-detectiondatasetparasitologycomputer-visionhttps://mingrath.com/getting-into-computational-neuroscience/https://mingrath.com/getting-into-computational-neuroscience/After wanting it for the longest time, the results are finally out — I'm going to study Computational Neuroscience, the place where biology and computation finally meet for me.Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonescomputational-neurosciencemilestonelearningneurosciencehttps://mingrath.com/deploy-ai-apps-with-cloudflare/https://mingrath.com/deploy-ai-apps-with-cloudflare/I finished a short course on deploying AI apps with Cloudflare — and the biggest takeaway is how good (and how nearly free) shipping an AI app to the edge has become.Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonescloudflaredeploymentai-appscertificateedgehttps://mingrath.com/lessons-from-building-with-many-ai-models/https://mingrath.com/lessons-from-building-with-many-ai-models/Hallucination and runaway token burn pushed me to other tools for a while. Here's what shipping several projects across many AI models actually taught me.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentllmhallucinationtokensworkflowmulti-modelhttps://mingrath.com/clearing-my-anthropic-course-backlog/https://mingrath.com/clearing-my-anthropic-course-backlog/I spent a day off clearing a backlog of courses I'd let pile up — Claude Code, Claude Cowork, and the Model Context Protocol — and finally collecting all the certificates.Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonescertificatelearningclaude-codemcpmilestonehttps://mingrath.com/my-name-in-a-book/https://mingrath.com/my-name-in-a-book/One of my bucket-list items just got ticked off — my name printed in a real book sitting on a bookstore shelf. A quiet but huge personal milestone.Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonesmilestonebookbucket-listwritinghttps://mingrath.com/building-a-medical-knowledge-graph/https://mingrath.com/building-a-medical-knowledge-graph/Everyone's hyped about knowledge graphs right now, and so am I. But building one isn't manual labor — there are tons of CLI tools for it. I used them to build MorMeow, a medical knowledge-graph viewer.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentknowledge-graphcli-toolsmedicalaiobsidianhttps://mingrath.com/running-glm-5-1-in-claude-code/https://mingrath.com/running-glm-5-1-in-claude-code/I've been running GLM 5.1 as the backend model inside Claude Code for a while now. It works well, it's easy to wire up, and most importantly it's seriously cheap — a perfect fit for not locking yourself into one pricey model.Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentglmclaude-codellmcosthttps://mingrath.com/everyone-needs-computational-thinking/https://mingrath.com/everyone-needs-computational-thinking/Computational thinking isn't just for programmers. No matter your field, being able to break a problem into clear, ordered steps is one of the most useful skills you can have.Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentcomputational-thinkingproblem-solvingmindsetlearninghttps://mingrath.com/super-ai-engineer-level-2/https://mingrath.com/super-ai-engineer-level-2/Got the news that I qualified for the Super AI Engineer Level 2 interview. A small but meaningful step on the self-taught path into AI.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonesmilestoneaisuper-ai-engineerlearninghttps://mingrath.com/continue-your-session-on-another-model/https://mingrath.com/continue-your-session-on-another-model/When Claude runs out of tokens but you still want to keep going, you don't have to stop — you can hand the same session over to a cheaper Chinese model and continue.Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentllmtokensclaudeworkflowmodelshttps://mingrath.com/managing-projects-with-cline-kanban/https://mingrath.com/managing-projects-with-cline-kanban/If you run several coding projects at once, a Kanban board with a built-in agent — like Cline Kanban — makes life dramatically easier. Tasks flow from Backlog to Done with an agent helping move them along.Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentkanbanclineagentproject-managementworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/claude-code-source-code-forensics/https://mingrath.com/claude-code-source-code-forensics/What you find when you actually dig into the source of the coding tool you use every day — internal flags, hidden hooks, and small lessons.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & DevelopmentClaude Codesource codeinternalsAI toolshttps://mingrath.com/open-source-ai-tools-worth-trying/https://mingrath.com/open-source-ai-tools-worth-trying/A quick round-up of seven open-source projects in the AI/agent space that are worth poking at — from tiny chat models to prompt testing and agent frameworks.Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentopen-sourceAI toolsagentspromptfoohttps://mingrath.com/anti-hallucination-claude-md-rules/https://mingrath.com/anti-hallucination-claude-md-rules/The 5 rules I keep in my global CLAUDE.md to stop coding agents from making things up — from letting them say 'I don't know' to refusing any claim without a source.Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentclaude-mdhallucinationagentspromptinghttps://mingrath.com/building-a-personal-ai-assistant/https://mingrath.com/building-a-personal-ai-assistant/What it's like to set up a personal AI assistant loaded with 150+ specialized skills and its own identity — and why a little 'showing off' is actually a good sign.Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & DevelopmentAI assistantskillsagentspersonal AIhttps://mingrath.com/web-app-pentesting-certification/https://mingrath.com/web-app-pentesting-certification/A short reflection on earning a certified web application penetration testing credential — and why learning to break things makes you a better builder.Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonespentestingsecuritycertificationweb securityhttps://mingrath.com/claude-cowork-course-reflection/https://mingrath.com/claude-cowork-course-reflection/A short reflection after finishing the Introduction to Claude Cowork course — and why I still think coding with these tools feels like co-working on steroids.Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & MilestonesClaudeCoworkcourseAI codinghttps://mingrath.com/ai-lowers-the-barrier-to-building/https://mingrath.com/ai-lowers-the-barrier-to-building/Why I think AI isn't simply replacing jobs — it's lowering the walls that used to stop ordinary people from starting their own thing, and creating new kinds of work in the process.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & DevelopmentAIfuture of workentrepreneurshipopinionhttps://mingrath.com/coding-from-anywhere-with-termius-tmux/https://mingrath.com/coding-from-anywhere-with-termius-tmux/My current setup lets me pick up work from any device, anywhere. Termius on the phone, tmux holding the session, and WezTerm on the desktop — the work just follows me around.Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmenttmuxtermiusworkflowremote-devhttps://mingrath.com/claude-foundations-certificate/https://mingrath.com/claude-foundations-certificate/A small milestone worth marking — I completed the Claude Foundations training program and got the certificate. Here's what it gave me beyond a piece of paper.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonesclaudecertificatelearningmilestonehttps://mingrath.com/learn-fast-book-to-skill-to-build/https://mingrath.com/learn-fast-book-to-skill-to-build/A little learning loop I keep coming back to: turn a book into a skill file, build something with that skill, then reverse-engineer what happened. It's the fastest way I've found to actually absorb new things.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentlearningskillsclaude-codeworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/build-your-own-x-to-learn-ai/https://mingrath.com/build-your-own-x-to-learn-ai/What I cannot create, I do not understand. The fastest way I've found to learn AI isn't reading more — it's building your own version of something, breaking it yourself, and learning right alongside it.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentlearningbuild-your-own-xclaude-codeaihttps://mingrath.com/building-a-graphrag-memory/https://mingrath.com/building-a-graphrag-memory/I've been experimenting with GraphRAG as a long/short-term memory for an AI agent — feeding it documents and watching the knowledge graph grow into beautiful chaos in real time.Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentgraphragknowledge-graphmemoryraghttps://mingrath.com/multi-agent-office-with-tmux/https://mingrath.com/multi-agent-office-with-tmux/I wired a fleet of ~168 Claude Code agents into tmux and drove them in waves — research first, then build — to ship a TV-optimized vet waiting-room dashboard in SvelteKit + Tailwind.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentmulti-agenttmuxclaude-codeorchestrationhttps://mingrath.com/the-op-and-chloe-openclaw-pattern/https://mingrath.com/the-op-and-chloe-openclaw-pattern/A deployment pattern I use to give business owners an OpenClaw assistant that pulls data from their ERP — built so the bot never really dies and the client can maintain it themselves.Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentopenclawagentsvpsdeploymenthttps://mingrath.com/a2ui-when-ai-generates-interfaces/https://mingrath.com/a2ui-when-ai-generates-interfaces/A2UI is an open-source idea where AI stops replying with long blocks of text and instead generates a small interface for you to use. It's a hint that agents are becoming tool-makers, not just chatbots.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmenta2uiai-agentsopen-sourceuihttps://mingrath.com/mac-studio-vs-dgx-spark/https://mingrath.com/mac-studio-vs-dgx-spark/I keep going back and forth between a Mac Studio and an NVIDIA DGX Spark for running models locally. Here's how I think about the trade-off (the hard part is finding the money).Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentlocal-aihardwaremac-studiodgx-sparkinferencehttps://mingrath.com/my-claude-code-mission-control/https://mingrath.com/my-claude-code-mission-control/I built a mission-control dashboard where every Claude Code agent gets its own room and a live terminal you can watch work in real time.Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentmulti-agentclaude-codedashboardtoolinghttps://mingrath.com/vibe-coding-a-football-celebration-site/https://mingrath.com/vibe-coding-a-football-celebration-site/My team won, so I spun up a quick little website to celebrate — with a vote for the next match. A fun reminder that small, throwaway side projects are the best way to keep your tools sharp.Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentside-projectvibe-codingwebfunweekend-buildhttps://mingrath.com/setting-up-an-openclaw-agent-team/https://mingrath.com/setting-up-an-openclaw-agent-team/I just finished wiring up an OpenClaw agent team — a little virtual office of coding agents. And right on cue, remote-control features for agents are showing up everywhere.Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI & Developmentopenclawagentsai-officeremote-controlworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/third-place-at-mit-hacking-medicine/https://mingrath.com/third-place-at-mit-hacking-medicine/We took 3rd place in the Mental Health track at MIT Hacking Medicine. A weekend of building under pressure that reminded me how much I love solving real health problems.Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestoneshackathonmit-hacking-medicinemental-healthhealthtechmilestonehttps://mingrath.com/studying-feline-behavior-medicine/https://mingrath.com/studying-feline-behavior-medicine/I signed up for a feline behavior medicine course from the RVC. A small reminder that the vet in me never really stops studying — even while I spend my days building with AI.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonesveterinaryfeline-behaviorrvclearningcontinuing-educationhttps://mingrath.com/notes-from-the-brain-audit-course/https://mingrath.com/notes-from-the-brain-audit-course/I sat in on The Brain Audit course — held for the first time in Thailand. A few notes on why understanding how people actually decide is a skill worth studying.Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTLearning & Milestonesthe-brain-auditmarketingpsychologycourselearninghttps://mingrath.com/toxic-productivity-trap/https://mingrath.com/toxic-productivity-trap/Doing more isn't always better. A short reflection on toxic productivity — when the urge to be useful every minute quietly burns you out.Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMproductivityburnoutmindsetwell-beinghttps://mingrath.com/digital-reading-tools/https://mingrath.com/digital-reading-tools/How I read and learn digitally — turning highlights and notes into knowledge I actually keep, with the kinds of tools that make it work.Sat, 23 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMdigital-readingPKMnoteshighlightslearninghttps://mingrath.com/roam-research-networked-notes/https://mingrath.com/roam-research-networked-notes/Why Roam Research changed how I think about note-taking — bi-directional links, daily notes, and letting ideas connect themselves.Sat, 28 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMroam-researchpkmnote-takingsecond-brainproductivityhttps://mingrath.com/getting-started-with-notion/https://mingrath.com/getting-started-with-notion/Notion can be anything — which is exactly why people get stuck. Here's how I think about starting simple and letting your system grow.Sat, 17 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMnotionpkmproductivitysecond-brainworkflowhttps://mingrath.com/productivity-in-engineering-orgs/https://mingrath.com/productivity-in-engineering-orgs/Reflecting on my first ever live talk — why productivity in an engineering org is less about working faster and more about removing friction for the whole team.Sat, 29 May 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMproductivityengineeringteamsworkflowmilestonehttps://mingrath.com/notion-daily-gratitude-journal/https://mingrath.com/notion-daily-gratitude-journal/A tiny daily habit that changed how I feel about my days: writing down what I'm grateful for in a simple Notion page.Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMNotiongratitudejournalinghabitsPKMhttps://mingrath.com/notion-cat-tracker-for-pet-owners/https://mingrath.com/notion-cat-tracker-for-pet-owners/How I use a simple Notion database to keep track of my cat's weight, vaccines, vet visits, and daily life.Fri, 07 May 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMNotionpetscat-trackerdatabasePKMhttps://mingrath.com/notion-habit-tracker/https://mingrath.com/notion-habit-tracker/A simple monthly habit tracker in Notion that helps me build good routines and actually see my progress.Wed, 05 May 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMNotionhabit-trackerhabitsproductivityPKMhttps://mingrath.com/managing-money-with-a-notion-budget/https://mingrath.com/managing-money-with-a-notion-budget/A simple monthly overview dashboard in Notion that finally made me understand where my money goes.Tue, 04 May 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMNotionbudgetpersonal-financeproductivityPKMhttps://mingrath.com/reaching-zero-inbox-with-gmail/https://mingrath.com/reaching-zero-inbox-with-gmail/How I tame my email with Gmail filters and labels, Tasks, and Google Calendar to keep the inbox empty without stress.Fri, 09 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMemailzero-inboxGmailGoogle-Calendarproductivityhttps://mingrath.com/body-doubling-for-work-from-home-focus/https://mingrath.com/body-doubling-for-work-from-home-focus/Working from home kills my focus, so I built a tiny co-working ritual: cameras on, mics off, 40 minutes of work next to someone else. Here is how body doubling works.Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMTProductivity & PKMproductivityfocuswork-from-homebody-doublingdeep-work