The art of simplicity

Posts

Giving OpenAI codex a try in VSCode

At GitHub Universe, GitHub announced that you can use OpenAI Codex with your existing GitHub Copilot Pro+ subscription. Therefore we first need to install the OpenAI Codex extension and sign in with GitHub Copilot. Installation & configuration You can directly install the extension from the extensions or through the Agent sessions view: After the installation has completed, you need to sign in. You can either use your ChatGPT account or your (existing) GitHub Copilot subscription. Once signed in, we have an extra chat window available: There are a few things we can configure here: Environment: Local workspace: The agent will interact with your local machine and VSCode workspace. Connect Codex Web: Send the chat to the ChatGPT web interface. Send to cloud: The agent will operate in a sandboxed cloud environment. Chat Mode (called approval modes in OpenAI Codex): Chat: Regular chat, doesn’t do any changes directly. ...

Defending yourself against compromised npm packages

The recent software supply-chain attacks proof once again that the npm ecosystem is a double-edged sword. With over 2 million packages available, developers can build applications faster than ever before. But this convenience comes with a significant security risk. When a single compromised package can affect thousands of downstream projects, we need better defenses. In this post, I'll show you how combining npm lock files with the --ignore-scripts flag creates a powerful security layer that can protect your projects from many common attack vectors. The growing threat of supply chain attacks Supply chain attacks in the npm ecosystem aren't theoretical—they're happening regularly. In recent years, we've seen high-profile incidents like the event-stream compromise, where a popular package was hijacked to steal Bitcoin wallets, and the ua-parser-js attack, where malicious code was injected to install cryptominers and password stealers. These attacks often follow a...

Understanding your project architecture and how it evolves over time using Gource

Have you ever wanted to see your project's Git history come to life? Gource is a fantastic tool that transforms your commit history into a mesmerizing animated visualization, showing how your codebase grows and evolves over time. It's like watching a time-lapse of your project's development, with files appearing, changing, and moving as contributors work on different parts of the code. But Gource is more than just eye candy. I like to use this tool to spot architectural patterns, identify hotspots where code changes frequently, understand how the team collaborates, and even detect potential coupling issues before they become problems. It's a powerful lens for understanding not just what a team has built, but how they've built it. In this post, I'll walk you through everything you need to know to create your first Gource visualization and use it to gain valuable insights into your codebase's architecture. What is Gource? Gource is an open-source vis...

Find your line

Last week I was listening to Adam Grant's Rethink podcast. The guest was Daryl Davis, a black musician who has spent decades doing something most of us would find unthinkable: sitting down face-to-face with members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, listening to them, and through empathy and curiosity, helping many leave hate groups behind. What struck me wasn't just his extraordinary work. It was also his advice for the rest of us, the ones who can't imagine doing what he does. Not everyone belongs on the front line Daryl Davis and Jeff Schoep, who also joined the podcast, are what he calls "on the front lines"—directly engaging with people in hate groups. But Davis readily acknowledges that this isn't for everyone. "Some people, they can't do that," he explained. "They cannot bring themselves to sit down with a KKK member or a neo-Nazi. 'I can't sit with those people. I'm afraid of them. Or I'm afraid I might punch...

Showing custom metrics in Aspire

After enabling Aspire for your application, you get OpenTelemetry integration for free thanks to the included ServiceDefaults code. This will setup OpenTelemetry using a set of defaults: Unfortunately this default configuration didn’t pick up any of the custom metrics I added. I first thought that this meant that I couldn’t use the service defaults anymore and configure the OpenTelemetry integration manually. But then I discovered that you can change/extend the default configuration in a specific project by using the ConfigureOpenTelemetryTracerProvider and/or ConfigureOpenTelemetryMeterProvider methods. Add your custom OpenTelemetry configuration after calling the Aspire builder.AddServiceDefaults() : Now our custom metrics appear nicely in the Aspire dashboard: More information Welcome to Aspire | Aspire Enabling .NET Aspire for an existing solution Replacing EventCounters with the new Metrics API

Replacing EventCounters with the new Metrics API

If you've been using EventCounters for instrumenting your .NET applications, it's time to consider migrating to the newer System.Diagnostics.Metrics API. Based on the OpenTelemetry specification, the Metrics API offers a more modern, flexible, and standardized approach to application instrumentation. Why migrate? The Metrics API provides several advantages over EventCounters: Industry Standard : Built on OpenTelemetry, ensuring compatibility with a wide ecosystem of monitoring tools Better Performance : More efficient with lower overhead Richer Functionality : Support for histograms, exemplars, and more sophisticated metric types Improved API Design : Cleaner, more intuitive interface for defining and recording metrics Better Tooling Support : Growing ecosystem support from APM vendors and monitoring solutions Microsoft has indicated that EventCounters are in maintenance mode, with new development focused on the Metrics API. So reasons enough to m...