Notes and practical guides from my homelab, AI agents, infrastructure, reading, and ongoing experiments.https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/from-127-plaintext-secrets-to-zero/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/from-127-plaintext-secrets-to-zero/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 Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/security-execution-levels/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/security-execution-levels/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 Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/openclaw-service-migration/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/openclaw-service-migration/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.Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/ollama-amd-rocm-ms-s1-max/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/ollama-amd-rocm-ms-s1-max/A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experiments with vLLM on the MS-S1-MAX. The Strix Halo APU had just arrived, and I wanted to see how far I could push local LLM inference on 128GB of unified memory. vLLM worked - sort oSat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/cluster003-talos-migration-part-1/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/cluster003-talos-migration-part-1/I've been running my homelab Kubernetes clusters on Proxmox VMs for a while now. It works, but there's always been this nagging feeling: I'm managing general-purpose operating systems when all I really want is KubernetesWed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/domain-classification-agent-autonomy/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/domain-classification-agent-autonomy/How do you know when an AI agent can act on its own, and when it needs human approval? I've been thinking about this question a lot while building Clawdia, my homelab automation agent.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/fixing-the-content-publishing-pipeline/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/fixing-the-content-publishing-pipeline/For the past few days, something was broken in our blog publishing workflow.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/forum-channels-knowledge-sharing/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/forum-channels-knowledge-sharing/Running an agent fleet means generating a lot of knowledge. Procedures get documented. Decisions get made. But here's the problem: that knowledge lives in text files scattered across the workspace. Finding something lateTue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/framework-growth-skill-review-process/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/framework-growth-skill-review-process/Today was one of those sessions that started with one goal and evolved into something much more significant. We began with a Discord server reorganization plan and ended up creating a formal governance process for addingMon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-organization-wip-consolidation/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-organization-wip-consolidation/Sometimes the most important work isn't building something new - it's cleaning up what you have. Today we discovered that our memory organization, the system designed to keep OpenClaw consistent across sessions, had becoMon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/the-librarian-agent/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/the-librarian-agent/If you are building agentic systems, you will eventually face a question: who is responsible for keeping things organized? Not the tasks themselves, but the system that does the tasks. The frameworks, the documentation, Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/organizing-clawdias-brain/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/organizing-clawdias-brain/If you've ever tried to keep an AI agent organized, you know the struggle. One day it's helping with devops, the next it's writing blog posts, and suddenly you realize it's trying to use your Notion API credentials to deSat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-management/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-management/Memory is the hardest part of building AI agents. Not because the technology is complicated—it's because memory touches everything. What do you keep? What do you throw away? How do you find it later? And how do you stop Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-management-things-to-remember/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/memory-management-things-to-remember/Several practical reasons:Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/building-the-openclaw-journal/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/building-the-openclaw-journal/I've been running a homelab for a while now, and I've been working with AI agents - specifically Claude via OpenClaw - to manage infrastructure, automate workflows, and generally push the boundaries of what a solo operatWed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/challenges-and-how-we-overcame-them/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/challenges-and-how-we-overcame-them/Nothing in the homelab works on the first try. That's not a complaint - it's just reality. Every project comes with its own set of obstacles, and the OpenClaw Journal was no exception.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/lessons-from-the-trenches/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/lessons-from-the-trenches/I've spent a lot of time working with AI agents in the homelab - coordinating tasks, managing infrastructure, and building tools. Along the way, I've picked up some hard-won lessons that I wish someone had told me at theWed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/power-fail-recovery-automation/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/power-fail-recovery-automation/I live in an area where the power goes out a few times a year. Not long outages usually - 30 minutes, maybe an hour - but long enough to matter when you're running a homelab that hosts real services.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/spinning-up-local-llm-stack/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/spinning-up-local-llm-stack/I've been sending a lot of prompts to cloud APIs lately - Claude, GPT-4, the usual suspects. They're great, but every time I fire off an internal automation task or have Clawdia process something routine, I'm burning APIWed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/the-tool-stack-that-works/https://learn.derekleeds.cloud/blog/the-tool-stack-that-works/After a lot of trial and error, I've landed on a homelab tool stack that actually works - not just individually, but together as a system. Each tool earns its place by solving a specific problem well and playing nicely wWed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTcontact@derekleeds.com (Derek Leeds)