Boring on purpose: how we pick a stack in 2026
The best stack is the one your next hire already knows. Our defaults, and the three questions that make us change them.
(02) — The note
Written by the people who did the work. Numbers come from client analytics, shared with permission.
We default to Next.js, Postgres and a managed cloud. Not because they’re exciting, but because your team can hire for them.
Three questions
Does the product need real-time data? Does it need to work offline? Will it run somewhere regulated? Each yes changes a default, and we write down why.
Write the decision down
Every project gets a one-page record of its architecture decisions, so the next engineer knows why things are the way they are.
(03) — Keep reading
More from the journal
Process
7 min
How we quote a build in two weeks
A fixed quote needs a fixed scope. Here is the discovery sprint we run before we name a price, and what you get at the end of it.
Case notes
6 min
The checkout that paid for itself in a month
Fernloop's new checkout lifted conversion from 3.1% to 4.6%. The design was the easy part. Here is what made the numbers move.
AI
9 min
Evals before features: shipping AI that doesn't guess
We write the test conversations before we write the prompt. It's slower for a week and much faster for a year.