Learn in public. Build with purpose.

Practical notes from my homelab, AI-agent experiments, infrastructure work, reading, and the lessons discovered along the way.

Notebook and workspace representing Derek Leeds' learning journal

Latest from the journal


From 127 Plaintext Secrets to Zero: Our 1Password Migration

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Mar 14, 2026

Running an AI agent system means managing a lot of API keys. Anthropic, OpenRouter, Cloudflare, Google, Discord, Brave Search, Todoist, Notion — the list grows with every integration. For months, those credentials lived

Security Execution Levels: When AI Agents Need Permission

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Mar 13, 2026

A few weeks ago I wrote about using Cynefin to classify problem domains — knowing when an AI agent can act on its own versus when it needs human approval. This week I found myself asking the inverse question: what tools

OpenClaw Service Migration: From pnode200 to openclaw-node01

cover for OpenClaw Service Migration: From pnode200 to openclaw-node01

Mar 11, 2026

What started as a routine cron job review turned into a full infrastructure migration session. Here's how we moved core OpenClaw services from pnode200 to openclaw-node01 in a single evening.