Engineering notes

Practical software engineering articles for production teams.

PHP, JavaScript, Node.js, AWS, platform work, architecture patterns, database changes, and integration details written around decisions that matter in maintained applications.

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3 articles

Production request path through DNS, Cloudflare, Apache, PHP, and MySQL

Infrastructure7 min readJul 26, 2026

A production checklist for PHP behind Cloudflare and Apache

A release checklist for the complete request path: DNS, Cloudflare, TLS, Apache rewrites, PHP runtime, trusted proxy headers, caching, security boundaries, and rollback.

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Secure webhook delivery flow from an external service to a PHP application

PHP Architecture6 min readJul 18, 2026

Building secure and repeatable webhook handlers in PHP

A production pattern for signature verification, idempotency, transaction boundaries, retries, and observable webhook processing.

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Secure browser upload flow through a PHP or Node backend to Amazon S3

AWS & Cloud6 min readJun 14, 2026

Secure direct uploads with AWS S3 presigned URLs

Design browser-to-S3 uploads with short-lived permissions, server-owned object keys, validation, completion checks, and cleanup.

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