Category: Software Engineering
Building with the GitHub Copilot SDK, Part 5: Pulling Calendar Data from Outlook
In my previous post, I added Mermaid.js diagram generation to the Design tab of Chad’s Copilot. Copilot read the workspace, generated valid diagram syntax from plain-language prompts, and made architecture docs something you’d actually keep up to date. This post is about something different. I wanted to pull in Outlook calendar data and make it…
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Generating Better Test Plans with AI Starts with Better Documentation
AI can help QA teams move faster, but only when it has the right context. When an AI-generated test plan feels too generic, too shallow, or misses obvious risks, the issue usually is not the model; it’s the input. If the only source material is a short ticket or a vague feature summary, the output…
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The Talent Pipeline Flush
Every few months, another headline drops: thousands of employees cut at a major tech company, paired with a statement about “repositioning for AI.” The numbers are staggering. The press releases are polished. And if you only read the headlines, you’d think these companies are shrinking. They’re not. They’re swapping one workforce for another, and the…
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The LLM Is the New Runtime
Last week, I was playing with Pencil, a design tool that lives inside your IDE. You describe what you want, and it generates UI designs on a canvas that compile into clean code. It’s a solid tool. But the thing that caught my attention had nothing to do with design. Pencil doesn’t ship its own…
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Building with the GitHub Copilot SDK, Part 4 – Building Mermaid.js Diagrams
In my previous post, we used the Copilot SDK to build a Tracking tab and earned value chart for Chad’s Copilot (WhenIsDone). Copilot read our project data, updated the data model, and built a working SVG chart without breaking anything that was already there. In this post, I’m going to show you how I added…
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Building with the GitHub Copilot SDK, Part 3 – Tracking Project Progress
In my previous post, we covered how to wire up the @github/copilot-sdk inside an Electron and Angular desktop app. We got authentication working, built streaming into the UI, and kept sessions separated per workspace. In this post, we are going to use that foundation to do something different. Instead of just chatting with Copilot about…
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Building with the GitHub Copilot SDK, Part 2 – Wiring Up an Electron + Angular Desktop App
In my previous post, we discussed the initial setup of the new Copilot SDK. This post will cover how we actually hook up the official @github/copilot-sdk inside an Electron and Angular application. Why is this structure necessary? When building a desktop application, we want a clean separation of concerns. We need to run the SDK…
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Building with the GitHub Copilot SDK, Part 1 – Getting Started
Starting a new project with a fresh SDK is always an interesting way to spend a weekend. I’ve been digging into the new Copilot SDK from Microsoft, and it has the potential to change how we think about integrated AI. Here is a look at how to get it running and why I think the…
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Specialized Models Beat General LLMs (Sometimes)
Here’s a question I’ve been chewing on lately: could a custom-built model for JavaScript/TypeScript actually outperform a flagship, general-purpose LLM while using a fraction of the memory and cost? For a lot of real-world developer tasks, the answer in early 2026 is yes. Now, I’m not claiming specialists win everywhere. That would be silly. But…
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Pulling Data from Microsoft Access to CSV: What I Built and Why
I’ve always loved working with plain old CSVs for my analysis and scripting needs. They are simple, portable, and just work everywhere. So when I got handed a Microsoft Access database that I needed to break out into individual CSV files, I figured I’d whip up a little toolchain to handle it reliably on my…
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