Reverse to build

This site is mostly about one thing now: writing embedded firmware with AI in the loop. Dev Logs is where that happens — repo setups, agent workflows, the scaffolding that makes a codebase legible to a model, and an honest account of what breaks.

Teardowns came first and is now an archive. Those posts reverse-engineer shipped smart-home hardware from public material — FCC filings and certification photos, vendor datasheets, published silicon documentation. I don't pull products apart on a bench; I read what the paperwork already gives away.

The name still fits. Working out how someone else's product was built is how I figure out what "good" looks like; building firmware myself is how I find out whether I actually understood it. Same loop, pointed in opposite directions.

I try to write the way the work actually feels: the dead ends, the rewrites, the things I got wrong and only noticed three commits later. If something I learn later contradicts an older post, I'd rather show the seam than hide it.