Writing
Anton Shubin, Senior Full-Stack Engineer & Tech Lead. Notes from client work and the tools I build. How I work
For founders
· 10 min read
How much does a SaaS MVP cost in 2027?
A professionally built SaaS MVP takes 4–12 weeks in 2027. That is roughly $10,000–$35,000. What drives the price, what AI changed, and the running costs.
· 9 min read
How to hire a developer to take over your AI-built app
Hiring a developer to take over your AI-built app? The red flags in a proposal, the green flags, three questions to ask and a safe first week.
· 9 min read
Cost-Disciplined SaaS Infrastructure: Managed Cloud, Dedicated, or Hybrid?
A founder-readable framework for choosing managed cloud, dedicated, or hybrid SaaS infrastructure based on workload, team, compliance, recovery, and total cost.
For developers
· 8 min read
preact-components: a Preact component library without shadcn or Radix
Why I own my UI components instead of using shadcn, Radix or MUI: a Preact component library in ten JSR packages, rendered on the server, keyboard handling written by hand, with a live guide. What is in it, how to try it, and what is not done yet.
AI and MCP
· 8 min read
I tested Trail-code on my Claude Code agents. They ignored the map.
Trail-code promises cheaper, faster coding agents through a code map. I replayed 10 merged PRs with and without it, in both of its modes, with blind reviews. My agents barely touched the map, and the cost differences stayed inside run-to-run noise.
· 9 min read
Claude Code vs MiniMax M3: 30 days against 3 months, in merged pull requests
I counted my GitHub output for three months on MiniMax M3 and my first 30 days on Claude Code: 19 times more merged pull requests a day. Here is what that number hides, what actually shipped, and how to count your own.
· 8 min read
Opus 5.5 vs Sonnet 5: the pricier model wrote my code for about half the cost
I priced five days of my coding-agent transcripts across four Claude models: 203 PRs and 411 reviewer agents. Opus 5.5 lists at twice Sonnet 5's price, yet cost about half as much per changed line once I compared like with like. Here is why, and what I changed.
· 15 min read
Building MCP Servers with Deno: A Practical Guide
Why Deno is the right runtime for Model Context Protocol servers, the architecture I use, a working CalDAV example, and what I learned shipping four MCP servers in production.
· 5 min read · Video
How ChatGPT Can Help You Design System Architecture for Your Applications
ChatGPT as your architecture copilot: generate system diagrams, compare databases, spot security gaps before they ship. Real prompts that work.
Self-hosting
· 7 min read
mig: a lightweight meeting scheduler because Calendly alternatives are overkill
One owner, one URL, one feature: book a time slot. A single Deno binary, JSON-file storage, SMTP confirmations with ICS attachments, cancellable links signed with SHA-256 HMAC. Built because I needed a static meeting link, not a database.
· 8 min read
rostok: scaffold a self-hosted homelab from a curated service catalog
The CLI I built to remove 80% of the friction between 'I want to self-host X' and 'X is running, secrets are committed, deploy is one command'. One wizard, a few prompts, and the same IaC structure I use for my own infrastructure.
· 6 min read
zond: a 10 MB probe bridge so Gatus can see through your SSO proxy
Health checks behind Authelia fail because Gatus cannot follow SSO redirects. Zond sits beside your services on the Docker network and answers 200 or 503 — no auth bypass, no internal URLs leaked, one config file.
· 9 min read
The missing piece in a self-hosted CalDAV stack: a web UI for Tasks.org
Tasks.org syncs Android tasks to CalDAV. There is no web UI for that data. I built a web app on top of the CalDAV server you already run. It is now being rewritten.
Scars
· 11 min read
Deno's development is ending, so I moved my SaaS starter to Node and Bun
To migrate from Deno to Node and Bun, the runtime calls are the easy part. What was hard in my SaaS starter, how I replaced Fresh, and what CI missed.
· 6 min read
My app's tab kept jumping to the front: passkey autofill and Bitwarden
Passkey autofill that renews on a timer can make Bitwarden steal focus and switch to your tab. Why, and the fix: renew only while the page has focus.
· 5 min read
I tried SKILL.state in my coding agents and stopped after four days
SKILL.state replaces an AI agent's growing chat history with an explicit execution state. I ran it on real tasks in my Claude Code setup for four days, then stopped. Here is what helped, what got in the way and why the problem went away on its own.
· 7 min read
My AI agent merged a stranger's pull request, and I didn't notice for three weeks
An AI coding agent merged an outside contributor's pull request into my public library under my own account, with a polished review comment. Nothing broke. Here is why it happened, the supply-chain hole behind it and the rules I changed the same day.
· 9 min read
Seed: the SaaS starter I distilled from 80+ projects, and how I over-engineered v1
Seed is the SaaS starter I build client MVPs on: groups as tenancy, CQRS with an outbox, an offline-first client, on web standards. Plus how I over-engineered the first version.
Archive
Older posts, kept as written. Each one says when it was written.
· 5 min read
Setting Up Your Own CI/CD Server with Drone CI
Running your own CI/CD with Drone CI on a $10 VPS. Docker Compose setup, pipeline config, GitHub integration — skip vendor lock-in, keep your builds private.
· 7 min read · Video
Dev tricks, Part 1: The Importance of Code Formatting with Prettier
Are you tired of staring at messy, unformatted code that looks like it was written by a herd of chaotic monkeys? Fear not, because Prettier is here to save the day!
· 7 min read
How to Keep Sane When Developing a SaaS Startup Solo? Part 1: Mindset and Mental Health
Take care of yourself first and work hard then
· 15 min read
My journey from an office job to freelance to my startups
While traveling and enjoying life
· 5 min read
Why you have to ship your idea today and with shittiest code possible
Or why so many developers abandon their attempts to release a product
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