The Journal

Notes from the field.

Engineering deep-dives, Ghana-native product patterns, and the occasional war story. Written by the team that ships them.

From Figma to Production in 4 Hours: Our Design-to-Code Workflow
Design

Featured

From Figma to Production in 4 Hours: Our Design-to-Code Workflow

How PMML converts pixel-perfect Figma designs into production React code in a single afternoon. Our exact workflow, tools, and component library strategy.

PMML Engineering · Studio
12 Jun 2026 · 8 min read
Database Indexing Explained: The 20-Minute Guide That Saves Hours of Debugging
Backend

Database Indexing Explained: The 20-Minute Guide That Saves Hours of Debugging

Your queries are slow because you're missing indexes. Here's everything you need to know about database indexing — with real EXPLAIN ANALYZE outputs and before/after benchmarks.

9 min database
9 Jun 2026
Why Your Side Project Fails (And the 1-Week MVP Framework That Works)
Strategy

Why Your Side Project Fails (And the 1-Week MVP Framework That Works)

You've started 10 projects and finished none. Here's the brutal truth about why, and the exact framework our team uses to ship MVPs in 5 days.

7 min startup
5 Jun 2026
The TypeScript Patterns That Changed How Our Team Writes Code
Engineering

The TypeScript Patterns That Changed How Our Team Writes Code

Discriminated unions, branded types, const assertions, and satisfies — these TypeScript patterns eliminate entire categories of bugs before your code even runs.

8 min typescript
2 Jun 2026
How We Reduced Our Client's AWS Bill by 73% (Real Numbers Inside)
DevOps

How We Reduced Our Client's AWS Bill by 73% (Real Numbers Inside)

A $12,400/month AWS bill dropped to $3,350. Here's the exact breakdown of what was wasteful, what we changed, and the Terraform configs we used.

9 min aws
29 May 2026
I Replaced 300 Lines of JavaScript with 10 Lines of Modern HTML
Frontend

I Replaced 300 Lines of JavaScript with 10 Lines of Modern HTML

Dialog modals, accordions, color pickers, lazy loading — HTML can do all of this natively now. Here's what you can delete from your codebase today.

6 min html
26 May 2026
The Architecture Behind Apps That Handle 10M Users (And What Yours Is Missing)
Architecture

The Architecture Behind Apps That Handle 10M Users (And What Yours Is Missing)

Most apps break at 10K users because of the same 5 mistakes. Here's the architecture playbook we use at PMML to build systems that scale — with real diagrams and code.

10 min architecture
22 May 2026
5 CSS Tricks That Make Senior Devs Say 'Wait, That Works?'
Frontend

5 CSS Tricks That Make Senior Devs Say 'Wait, That Works?'

From container queries to the :has() selector — these CSS features feel like cheating. Copy-paste these into your next project and watch your team's reaction.

7 min css
19 May 2026
Ship a REST API in 15 Minutes with Supabase Edge Functions
Engineering

Ship a REST API in 15 Minutes with Supabase Edge Functions

No server provisioning. No Docker. No YAML. Just TypeScript functions deployed to the edge — cold starts under 50ms, globally distributed, free tier included.

8 min supabase
15 May 2026
Build a Type-Safe API Client with TypeScript Generics
Engineering

Build a Type-Safe API Client with TypeScript Generics

Stop casting API responses to 'any'. We'll build a fully type-safe HTTP client that catches errors at compile time — not at 3am in production.

11 min typescript
4 May 2026
A Practical Guide to React Suspense and Streaming SSR
Engineering

A Practical Guide to React Suspense and Streaming SSR

Suspense isn't just for loading spinners. It fundamentally changes how you architect data fetching — streaming HTML to the browser before your slowest query finishes.

10 min react
1 May 2026
Build a Real-Time Dashboard with Server-Sent Events and React
Engineering

Build a Real-Time Dashboard with Server-Sent Events and React

WebSockets are overkill for dashboards. SSE gives you real-time push with zero library dependencies, automatic reconnection, and works through every proxy.

9 min react
30 Apr 2026
Build a Production CLI Tool in 80 Lines of TypeScript
Engineering

Build a Production CLI Tool in 80 Lines of TypeScript

Most CLI tutorials teach you echo and process.argv. We'll build a real tool with argument parsing, colored output, spinners, and auto-update — all under 80 lines.

10 min typescript
27 Apr 2026
Build a Real-Time Multiplayer Game in 150 Lines of TypeScript
Engineering

Build a Real-Time Multiplayer Game in 150 Lines of TypeScript

Forget bloated game engines. We'll build a real-time multiplayer dot game using nothing but TypeScript, WebSockets, and HTML Canvas — deployable in minutes.

12 min 1 typescript
26 Apr 2026
"We Shipped One-Command Edge Deploys — Here's How Your Team Can Too"
Engineering

"We Shipped One-Command Edge Deploys — Here's How Your Team Can Too"

excerpt: "Most deploy pipelines in Accra still look like a Slack DM that says 'please SSH into the server.' We fixed that. One function call, one region flag, zero prayer."

5 min 1
24 Apr 2026