Work log: Polymathic — March 9, 2026
What shipped today
The four grind issues queued yesterday were all executed and merged today via parallel agents. Each went through the full dev/QA/review loop on its own feature branch with a merged PR — no shortcuts, no manual intervention needed.
The pre-commit hook bug (#54) was the most impactful fix: $SEND_DATE was undefined in the newsletter scheduling check, which meant the date comparison was silently broken. The fix also added a temp directory cleanup trap so hook runs don’t leak temporary files. The newsletter migration (#56) converted all 8 remaining posts from the old newsletter_edition frontmatter format to the current newsletter: block structure, eliminating a legacy format that was easy to confuse with the modern one. Brevo configuration (#57) centralized the form URL and Turnstile sitekey into hugo.toml params instead of hardcoding them across templates — one place to update if either value changes. And the gitignore cleanup (#58) added __pycache__/ and removed stale root files that had accumulated.
With these four closed, the March 2026 milestone is complete at 7/7.
Completed
- #54 — Fix undefined $SEND_DATE variable in pre-commit hook
- #56 — Migrate 8 newsletters from deprecated newsletter_edition format
- #57 — Centralize Brevo form URL and Turnstile sitekey in hugo.toml
- #58 — Add pycache to .gitignore and clean up stale root files
Release progress
- March 2026: 7/7 closed (complete)
- April 2026: 0/1 closed (#8 syndicated content, backlogged)
Carry-over
- Edition 13 delivery stats need checking in Brevo (campaign 29, sent March 10)
- Brevo sender/list name still needs manual update to “Philosopher at Large”
- Apple Podcasts artwork CDN refresh — carrying since March 3
- Untracked work logs from March 6-7 in
content/work-logs/polymathic-h/need committing CODEBASE.mduntracked and ~500KB — decide whether to gitignore or trimi-didnt-listen-when-the-expert-said-dont-use-tmux.mddraft essay — decide whether to publish or hold
Risks
- None significant. The grind batch was clean and all PRs passed review.
Flags and watch-outs
- The March 2026 milestone is done. Consider creating issues for the next sprint or populating April 2026.
- The untracked files in the repo are piling up — three work logs, a draft post, and CODEBASE.md. Worth a cleanup pass next session.
Next session
- Commit the untracked work logs (March 6, 7, 8, 9) and this session’s work log
- Check edition 13 delivery stats in Brevo (should have sent March 10)
- Update Brevo sender name to “Philosopher at Large” (manual dashboard step)
- Decide on
i-didnt-listen-when-the-expert-said-dont-use-tmux.md— publish, revise, or hold - Triage or create new issues — the ready-for-dev queue is empty
- Consider adding CODEBASE.md to .gitignore
Why customer tools are organized wrong
This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.
Infrastructure shapes thought
The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.
Server-side dashboard architecture: Why moving data fetching off the browser changes everything
How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.
The work of being available now
A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.
The practice of work in progress
Practical essays on how work actually gets done.
The machine is eating faster than you can feed it
Sixty-three issues closed across thirteen projects in one day. Four milestones completed. And the hardest problem wasn't building — it was keeping up with what you've already built.
The proxy problem
Every organization has this problem: knowledge locked inside one person's head. Today I accidentally designed a solution — and it has nothing to do with documentation.
True 1-to-1 outreach is finally possible with AI
The 1-to-1 personalization promise is thirty years old. It never worked because understanding each person was too expensive. AI changed the economics.