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Antal István
Software engineer

Generating code got easy. Making it last didn't.

I'm István Antal. I write about software architecture, agentic coding, and the craft of building things that last — notes from the work, not the hype.

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8 posts
Thoughts

Rebuilding a B2B platform to last

Four years owning architecture and delivery: faster pricing, repeatable infrastructure and dependable releases for a 300,000-product B2B platform.

Thoughts

Understanding AI costs: a guide for mere mortals

Credits and flat subscriptions hide what AI really costs. At list price, my $200 Claude plan covered $11,158 of usage in September.

Thoughts

How LLM reasoning works

You're billed for every thinking token, including the ones the vendor hides from you, and more thinking doesn't always mean a better answer.

Tool

SpecForge

A read-only view of spec driven work across all your repositories: each change's proposal, tasks, worktrees, commits and pull request.

Guide

Where the specs live

Specs are easier to work with when they follow a familiar structure and you can find the changes that need your attention.

Tool

UK earnings calculator

Compare UK salaries and contract rates, model company salaries and dividends across members, and see take-home pay and the 62% tax corridor.

Thoughts

Story points were always days

Story points began as ideal days times a load factor. Teams still convert them back, velocity is that conversion in public, and throughput beats both.

Thoughts

AI model benchmarks are a suggestion

Model benchmark tables and one-shot demos are vendor-run, Goodharted, and blind to your harness. The only benchmark that predicts your work is your work.

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