https://alvincrespo.com/ Alvin Crespo is a principal developer experience engineer who helps engineering teams adopt AI in ways that actually stick. en-us Mon, 10 Nov 2025 23:06:31 +0000 https://alvincrespo.com/ai/managing-context-and-memory-for-openai-api-chat-applications/ https://alvincrespo.com/ai/managing-context-and-memory-for-openai-api-chat-applications/ Mon, 10 Nov 2025 23:06:31 +0000 Introduction Here's something that might surprise you: The OpenAI API doesn't remember anything between API calls. Each request is completely isolated, with no built-in memory of what you just discussed. So how do applications like ChatGPT maintain t... https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/quick-tip-customizing-wsl-starting-directory/ https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/quick-tip-customizing-wsl-starting-directory/ Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:46:00 +0000 If you’re using WSL like I am on Windows 11 - you most likely have run into the issue where launching WSL from the applications menu was starting you at /mnt/c/windows/system32: If you need to customize this to work in your home directory, you can c... https://alvincrespo.com/databases/mysql-query-optimization-at-scale/ https://alvincrespo.com/databases/mysql-query-optimization-at-scale/ Fri, 01 Aug 2025 17:57:47 +0000 Working with large datasets across multiple tables is a common challenge in enterprise applications, particularly those with rich histories and substantial data accumulation over time. These systems often present unique optimization opportunities tha... https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/integrating-stripe-webhooks-in-ruby-on-rails/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/integrating-stripe-webhooks-in-ruby-on-rails/ Fri, 18 Apr 2025 22:59:24 +0000 Handling subscription payments is a common requirement for many modern web applications. Stripe is one of the most popular payment processing services, and their webhook system allows your application to respond to events happening within the Stripe ... https://alvincrespo.com/javascript-frontend/react-vite-production-ready-docker/ https://alvincrespo.com/javascript-frontend/react-vite-production-ready-docker/ Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:19:35 +0000 In my previous article, we set up a development environment for a Vite + React application using Docker. While that setup was perfect for development, production environments have different requirements around security, performance, and reliability. ... https://alvincrespo.com/engineering-leadership/stakeholder-communications-a-framework/ https://alvincrespo.com/engineering-leadership/stakeholder-communications-a-framework/ Tue, 21 Jan 2025 14:12:53 +0000 Facilitating honest, authentic engagement, while not overwhelming stakeholders and contributors with information and updates (or starving them of information), is the best way to help individuals and groups appreciate project pitfalls, understand pro... https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/tool-breakdown-browser-actionssetup-chrome/ https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/tool-breakdown-browser-actionssetup-chrome/ Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:43:56 +0000 In this new series, "Tool Breakdown", I'm walking through the core mechanics of the tools I use in various projects. I'm starting with a deep dive into a critical component of the browser-actions/setup-chrome Github action. After encountering version... https://alvincrespo.com/javascript-frontend/getting-started-with-react-vite-docker/ https://alvincrespo.com/javascript-frontend/getting-started-with-react-vite-docker/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 02:35:09 +0000 I’ve recently jumped back into React / Frontend development and was curious what tools the cool kids are using these days. At work, we use create react app, which seems to have been deprecated and isn’t even mentioned in the React docs anymore. So I ... https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/resolve-the-error-while-removing-network-with-docker-docker-compose/ https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/resolve-the-error-while-removing-network-with-docker-docker-compose/ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 01:54:06 +0000 Prerequisites Docker version 4.37.1 or later Basic familiarity with Docker Compose Multiple Docker Compose files in your environment The Problem This week I ran into a fun issue at work having to do with setting up our local development environ... https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/rails-8s-lazy-route-loading-devise/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/rails-8s-lazy-route-loading-devise/ Sun, 05 Jan 2025 12:14:11 +0000 Rails 8.0 introduces a significant change to route loading behavior, lazy loading routes by default in development and test. This change has implications for gems that interact with Rails' routing system, particularly Devise, which I personally use o... https://alvincrespo.com/testing/how-test-coverage-impacts-annual-recurring-revenue-arr/ https://alvincrespo.com/testing/how-test-coverage-impacts-annual-recurring-revenue-arr/ Mon, 02 Dec 2024 10:25:53 +0000 Over a 25-year life expectancy of a large software system, almost fifty cents out of every dollar will go to finding and fixing bugs. UNDERSTANDING, FINDING AND FIXING DEFICIENCIES. Herb K. The Cost of Poor Software Quality in the US: A 2022 Report. ... https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/enhancing-a-scalable-export-in-ruby-on-rails-lessons-learned/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/enhancing-a-scalable-export-in-ruby-on-rails-lessons-learned/ Fri, 18 Oct 2024 10:00:13 +0000 In my last blog post, I walked you through the implementation of a scalable export system in a Ruby on Rails application. Since then, I’ve encountered a few challenges, particularly around concurrency, file locking, and ensuring that data exports are... https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/build-a-scalable-export-in-ruby-on-rails/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/build-a-scalable-export-in-ruby-on-rails/ Wed, 16 Oct 2024 10:07:36 +0000 Hey there! If you're a software developer with a few years of expertise or an entrepreneur establishing a platform and realize your customers require a way to export their data, this post is for you. I've been creating SaaS applications for 15 years ... https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/disabling-env-files-for-github-copilot/ https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/disabling-env-files-for-github-copilot/ Sat, 28 Sep 2024 11:04:34 +0000 I was curious if there was a way to configure Github copilot to NOT have access to certain files in a project and found that - it’s not necessarily straightforward. It turns out that there are no dotfiles you can set up or a setting to explicitly tel... https://alvincrespo.com/testing/testing-viewcomponent-w-capybara/ https://alvincrespo.com/testing/testing-viewcomponent-w-capybara/ Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:00:33 +0000 Today I was writing some tests and dug into a little bit of ViewComponent and Capybara. Most of time you read a tutorial and just kind of get whatever done, here I'm going to explain in detail what my test is doing and why it's important. 💡 If you'... https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/tips-docker-aliases-with-zsh-using-ohmyzsh/ https://alvincrespo.com/devops-tooling/tips-docker-aliases-with-zsh-using-ohmyzsh/ Mon, 12 Aug 2024 11:02:48 +0000 I use ohmyzsh as my preferred shell setup. I also use Docker. Recently, I've been focused on automating the setup and teardown of my applications. This is where ohmyzsh's excellent support for docker comes in, as it has many aliases that help with sh... https://alvincrespo.com/databases/tips-for-working-with-complex-normalized-databases/ https://alvincrespo.com/databases/tips-for-working-with-complex-normalized-databases/ Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:18:53 +0000 We’ve all been taught the benefits of normalizing our data. So I won’t bore you with those details, but to sum it up: Normalization is the process of organizing data in a database. It includes creating tables and establishing relationships between t... https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/chartjs-turbo-stimulus-in-rails-7/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/chartjs-turbo-stimulus-in-rails-7/ Mon, 03 Jan 2022 18:53:27 +0000 Background Over the winter break I updated our gardening app, Jardim.io, to Rails 7. It was a breeze! However, we were still reliant on webpack because we had a React application that utilized nivo for our charting solution. Webpack and React are ove... https://alvincrespo.com/engineering-leadership/thoughts-on-technology-choices/ https://alvincrespo.com/engineering-leadership/thoughts-on-technology-choices/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:00:00 +0000 The technology you choose to build your product in is a critical one. That's why it's so important to understand the context in which this decision gets made. In today's thought piece I talk about what guides me and how I think through these kinds of decisions. https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/integrating-google-oauth-in-rails-part-1/ https://alvincrespo.com/ruby-rails/integrating-google-oauth-in-rails-part-1/ Mon, 07 Sep 2020 13:00:00 +0000 Have you ever had to integrate OAuth? Integrate with Google? No?! Cool. This series is focused on helping you integrate with Google APIs fairly quickly. I'm going to show you how to 1) create events for your users google calendar and 2) manage incomi...