New blog post, with a perhaps mildly unpopular opinion: jayconrod.com/posts/133/in...

Integration tests are best tests

Itegration tests are the most important kind of tests. You should strive for excellent integration test coverage and invest relatively little time in unit tests. I've believed this since I worked on c...

jayconrod.com

I spoke at BazelCon! If you missed it, the slides and transcript are up on the EngFlow blog. The recording on YouTube is linked from there too. blog.engflow.com/2025/11/25/l...

The first new entry in this series in six years! Today we're learning how to write a Bazel module extension. jayconrod.com/posts/131/wr...

Writing Bazel rules: module extensions

The biggest Bazel change in the last few years was the introduction of modules (also known as Bzlmod). Today we'll explore how to write a module extension, and why you'd want to do so.

jayconrod.com

Someone told me they got better results from an LLM code generator if they used ALL CAPS in the prompt. I wonder if it produces even better results if you swear at it. Could effective use of profanity really be what distinguishes a good senior engineer?

Counted 6 cars without lights on the way home tonight. It is the hour of hour lord 8:30pm. Turn your lights on.

Some reflections on professional open source work, first blog post in a while. jayconrod.com/posts/130/op...

Open source is like a second job

When I started working as a software engineer, I really wanted to work full time in open source. I've been lucky enough to spend a decent chunk of my career doing exactly that. Much of that work has b...

jayconrod.com

Tinkering on a side project while on PTO this week. Wanted to share a clever little parser trick borrowed from the Bazel tools. jayconrod.com/posts/129/pr...

Heading back to the beach after a week in Munich at BazelCon. Had a great time, but I’m kind of looking forward to eating some vegetables again.

An xkcd that perfectly describes what it's like to work on a build tool on Windows. xkcd.com/1888/

Still in Use

xkcd.com

Finally, a day to practice my favorite activity, staring directly at the sun.