Notes from the build
Announcements, engineering notes, and guides for the person pointing an AI agent at the platform: what it can do, what it gets wrong, and what it must never be allowed to do.
Scaffold a Backend-less Web App with One Prompt: What the Agent Does and Why in That Order
The scaffold-backendless-app MCP prompt turns a one-line description into a datastore, an auth instance with per-user row rules, a function and a hosted site. Each step, why the order is forced, and the checklist to run before real users arrive.
Give Claude Code a Backend: Connect It to Datastore, Auth and Functions over MCP
One command connects Claude Code to altengine over MCP. The sign-in flow, the two choices on the consent screen, what whoami tells the agent, three first asks in rising size, and when to use a scoped key or the local emulator instead.
altengine Is Now Built for AI Agents First: Every Service as an MCP Tool
The front door to altengine is now an MCP server. Connect Claude Code, claude.ai or any MCP client and an agent can provision a database, write the access rules, deploy a function and host the site — while billing, members and API keys stay with a person. Here is what changed, what did not, and why.
How to Run a Docker Image as a Background Job Over a REST API
One POST starts your image as a background job and returns an id. Here is the whole shape — launch, poll or callback, where the output goes — and the three limits that decide whether it fits your workload.
What Happened to App Engine's Legacy Bundled Services (and What Replaces Them)
A field guide to App Engine's bundled services — which were shut off, which quietly survived, and which never had a standalone successor — with a service-by-service map of what you can use instead in 2026.
How to Automate a Windows Desktop App (and Let an AI Agent Write the Script)
Enrol a Windows machine, drive a legacy application by its accessibility tree, and hand the hard part — working out the selectors — to an AI agent that can see the running app over MCP.
Usage-Based vs Cluster Pricing for Search: Which Actually Wins?
A rented search node has a floor but no marginal cost; usage pricing has no floor but charges per query. Here is the arithmetic for both, the crossover point, and how to tell in five minutes which side of it you are on.
Adding Realtime Notifications to a Web App
A notification bell that updates without a refresh is three moving parts: a token endpoint on your server, one WebSocket in the browser, and an HTTP publish when something happens. Here is the whole build, plus the part most guides skip — where the notifications actually live.