Show Notes
This daily update dives into tool choice, real-time stacks, and automating knowledge work. It covers why you should value primitives, how edge functions fit in, and a hands-on look at Context 7 and MCP for keeping docs and processes up to date.
Superbase and choosing primitives over abstractions
- Big takeaway: success comes from improving existing standards rather than reinventing the wheel.
- Supabase offers a portable PostgreSQL database with built-in real-time. It exposes primitives you can learn and modify, instead of relying on heavy abstractions.
- The value of learning the primitives: you’ll debug and extend more effectively than with “black box” toolchains.
- Remix vs Next.js debate highlights: fewer magical abstractions means easier debugging and deeper understanding.
Real-time stack under the hood
- Real-time in Supabase is powered by websockets; the underlying tech stack includes Elixir in production systems.
- Elixir is known for reliability; used by big players (WhatsApp, some payments/telecoms) and in services like Discord and Pinterest.
- You can self-host and inspect the codebase to understand how real-time and primitives are wired together.
Practical tips: learning, self-hosting, and tooling
- If learning, sometimes reading the GitHub codebase and self-hosting is faster than chasing tutorials.
- Copilot can help you navigate these primitives and answer setup questions.
- When debugging, favor digging into the underlying components (databases, queues, triggers) over chasing abstractions.
Edge Functions: what they do and how to use them
- Edge functions run as workers, letting long-running tasks not block the client or consume app resources.
- They’re great for offloading work, but they can be confusing at first.
- Practical guidance: use database triggers where possible; edge functions are best for tasks that truly belong off the main thread.
Context 7 and up-to-date docs with MCP
- Context 7 provides up-to-date docs with context, addressing the problem of outdated docs and token-heavy retrieval.
- It formats results with a clean structure (description, title, language, snippet) and scales to large doc sets.
- MCP (machine/controller pattern) server: a natural-language interface you call to fetch docs or guidance (e.g., “how to use Next.js after function useContext7”).
- The workflow shown: pull Context 7 docs, debug with MCP, and use the results to inform real projects.
Automation pipeline for YouTube video processing
- The automation server idea: drop a YouTube video into a folder, and auto-generate all surrounding assets.
- Audio processing
- Transcripts and subtitles (VTT)
- Show notes
- Chapters
- Titles
- The system uses modular prompts (separate prompts for transcript, show notes, chapters, etc.) to improve quality.
- Implementation notes: built a server on Google Cloud Run (GCB) and connected it to an automation workflow; ongoing work includes refining MCP-based calls.
Cursor docs and keeping knowledge current
- Always-up-to-date docs with Context 7 can fix issues like “index failed” in Cursor features.
- The approach involves wrapping doc updates into MCP-driven automation, so docs stay current without manual edits.
- This is part of a broader pattern Parker’s exploring: automate context, docs, and content-generation pipelines.
Actionable takeaways
- When starting a new tool, look for primitives you can learn and control rather than relying on high-level abstractions.
- Use edge functions to handle long-running tasks without blocking user requests; prefer triggers when appropriate.
- Explore Context 7 for current docs and formats; consider building an MCP-based layer to fetch and format docs on demand.
- Build an automation pipeline for recurring content tasks (like processing videos) with modular prompts to improve quality and consistency.
- If you maintain docs, experiment with a lightweight MCP workflow to keep content up to date automatically.