Let Me Paint You a Picture...
I'm sitting at my desk, fully dialed in, working on site security.
Everything feels calm and controlled. The same feeling I get when I'm at a friend's private cedar mill, slowly scanning for the perfect slab for my next project. You're focused, patient, and confident that you're doing good work.
Sure, the odd error pops up here and there, but nothing serious. Easily corrected.
Then I think:
"It's been a bit since my last commit."
Probably a good time. And hey, I might as well push it to the repo too. I just did some solid work, no sense losing it to something silly and preventable.
The push succeeds.
And then it hits me.
I Just Pushed All My Keys and Passwords 😐
Yup.
Full-on beginner moment.
Cue immediate panic and damage control.
I went straight into cleanup mode: revoking keys, rotating secrets, changing passwords, updating configs everywhere they needed to be. Private repo or not, I treated everything as compromised.
Burn it down. Rebuild. Move forward.
Once that was done, it was time to test.
Three Out of Four Things Work Perfectly
The UI?
Not so much.
"Please click the checkbox to ensure that you are a human."
Buddy... I did. I'm looking right at it!
Dev tools open. Network tab. Payload inspection. Everything looks correct. Responses are coming back exactly as expected.
So what's the deal?
I dive back into the code and make a few changes that my slightly panicked brain feels are absolutely correct.
Boom. New error.
Honestly? Progress.
Now the UI says:
"There is a network issue. Please try again."
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Back into the code. Change this. Adjust that. Test again.
"There is a network issue. Please try again."
At this point I'm delivering a one-person rant in my office that would make a crude stand-up comic proud.
I go upstairs. Make a coffee. I don't care that it's well past the time any reasonable person would be sleeping. I am having a coffee.
The Culprit
I calm down. Sit back down. And start fresh.
I spent a truly embarrassing amount of time on this bug.
You will not believe what it was...
A single "/".
One slash. Changed the entire directory path.
Why didn't anything just say, "Hey... check out line 374. Something isn't right there."?
But that's how it goes sometimes.
Everything works now.
And that's when I met git-filter-repo.
A rabbit hole I never expected to go down, but an incredibly useful one to understand.
Momentum Feels Different Now
Here's the part that really matters.
For a long time, I've kept a running to-do list on my phone. The kind where you remove one task... and immediately add another. Sometimes two.
That note used to be just over two pages long.
Now?
Less than one.
Lately, I've only been removing items.
That's how I know I'm moving forward at a good pace.
A Small Feature That Made Me Way Too Excited
One of my recent wins was adding a first-visit experience to the home page.
On a user's first visit, or if they visit from a new device, they're greeted with a short burst of confetti and a welcome message.
Once they've seen it, that information is stored in local storage. No repeat confetti. No repeated message.
It's small. It's simple.
But the moment I saw it working exactly as intended, I couldn't help but smile.
That's the stuff that keeps momentum alive.
What This Phase Has Reinforced
Security mistakes happen. Bugs happen. Slashes happen.
What matters is how quickly you recover, what you learn, and whether you keep moving.
Right now, things feel aligned. The foundation is solid, features are clicking into place, and progress feels measurable.
That's a good place to be.