Reading Notes #684

Balancing cloud innovation with AI practicality, this week’s notes blend Azure updates, .NET’s AI roadmap, and clever Python hacks. A sharp reminder on burnout prevention anchors the mix, while creative teams and DevOps culture inspire fresh perspectives. From Docker model runners to Git worktrees, every corner here offers actionable insights or a spark of curiosity, no clichés, just tools and truths for developers navigating the stormy seas of tech.

Suggestion of the week

• To Every Developer Close To Burnout, Read This · theSeniorDev (Dragos Nedelcu) - Your friendly reminder to take care of yourself, it's more important than we think. Everyone should read this.

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - January 2026: Configuration & Performance ( PuiChee (PC) Chan) - Happy to see this great tool getting updated, as I will need it soon.

AI

• .NET AI Essentials - The Core Building Blocks Explained - .NET Blog (Jeremy Likness) - A really interesting first post to a series with a lot of promises on .NET and AI

• Unlocking AI's full potential: Why context is everything (Rahul Auradkar) - Learn how to avoid the pitfall of too many enterprises where they are agents are data-rich but are missing context.

• Optimizing Python scripts with AI – Daniel Lemire's blog - Cool idea! This post shares how a Python script was used to aggregate c++ files following some rules.

• Use Claude Code with Docker Model Runner (Dorin Geman) - Short tutorial use use your local model in one more tool.

Podcasts

• 493: Git's most powerful but underutilized tool (Merge Conflict) - Great episode where I finally understood what Git work trees are and how to use them in VSCode. Frank is also hilarious in this episode with all the emojis

• Scott Hanselman: The Future of Software Engineering - Episode 382 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - The Future of Software Engineering is definitely a hot topic; nice episode.

• 122. How AI Is Transforming Human Resources - with Ana Inés Urrutia (Betatalks the podcast) - AI is affecting ALL domains and is accessible to everyone. I'm always curious to learn more details on how.

Miscellaneous

• How a Creative Team Learned to Love Azure DevOps (Golnaz ) - More teams should take an example from this and bend tools to fully help them. We shouldn't accept the status quo. It's also great to see the synergy between different teams.

~frank

Reading Notes #683

A lot of good stuff crossed my radar this week. From Aspire’s continued evolution and local AI workflows with Ollama, to smarter, more contextual help in GitHub Copilot, the theme is clear: better tools, used more intentionally. I also bookmarked a few thoughtful pieces on leadership and communication that are worth slowing down for. Plenty here to explore, whether you’re deep in code or thinking about how teams actually work.

Programming

• Distributed apps platform Aspire supports JavaScript, Python (Loraine Lawson) - This stack of news brings Aspire rebranding explanations, details on the last Rust update with its great network improvement, and a hackathon for useful apps

• Aspire 13.1 Brings MCP Integration, CLI Enhancements, and Azure Deployment Updates - InfoQ - Quick post about what is new in this release.

AI

• How to Run Claude Code With Local Models Using Ollama (Vladislav Guzey) - Interesting, curious to see more in detail how it works.

• Bringing work context to your code in GitHub Copilot - Microsoft for Developers (Kayla Cinnamon) - That looks really cool. Being able to connect non-code information to the contest. I need to watch those videos.

• Practical Ways AI Can Help You Today with Minimal Setup (James Sturtevant) - Nice post with real-life tips sharing what works and what doesn't. A good read.

Open Source

• The end of the curl bug-bounty (Daniel Stenberg) - I didn't know about this effort, and it's sad to learn about it too now, of course, but I'm glad those programs exist.

Miscellaneous

• Why I Still Write Code as an Engineering Manager (James Sturtevant) - There is still hope, everyone! But more seriously, an inspiring post that managers should read.

• The Art of the Oner (Golnaz) - Another great post from Golnaz talks about how to help the message to land. How and why one takes are helping when presenting and the effort it represents.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Automatically Create AI Clips with This n8n Template

I'm excited to share that my new n8n template has been approved and is now available for everyone to use! This template automates the process of creating AI-generated video clips from YouTube videos and sending notifications directly to your inbox.

French version of this post here

Try the template here: https://link.reka.ai/n8n-template-api

What Does This Template Do?

If you've ever wanted to automatically create short clips from long YouTube videos, this template is for you. It watches a YouTube channel of your choice, and whenever a new video is published, it uses AI to generate engaging short clips perfect for social media. You get notified by email when your clip is ready to download.

How It Works

The workflow is straightforward and runs completely on autopilot:

1. Monitor YouTube channels - The template watches the RSS feed of any YouTube channel you specify. When a new video appears, the automation kicks off.

2. Request AI clip generation - Using Reka's Vision API, the workflow sends the video for AI processing. You have full control over the output:

   • Write a custom prompt to guide the AI on what kind of clip to create
   • Choose whether to include captions
   • Set minimum and maximum clip duration

3. Smart status checking - When the clips are ready, you receive a success email with your download link. As a safety feature, if the job takes too long, you'll get an error notification instead.

Getting Started is Easy

The best part? You can install this template with just one click from the n8n Templates page. No complex setup required!

After installation, you'll just need two quick things:

• A free Reka AI API key (get yours from Reka)
• A Gmail account (or use any email provider you like)

That's it! The template comes ready to use. Simply add your YouTube channel RSS feed, connect your API key, and you're ready to start generating clips automatically. The whole setup takes just a few minutes.

If you run into any questions or want to share what you've built, join the Reka Discord community. I'd love to hear how you're using this template!

Show Me

In this short  video I show you how to get that template into your n8n and how to configure it.

Happy clipping!