TechEarl
Topic · AI

Tools that think, write, and ship code with you

14 articlesWritten by Ishan Karunaratne
More in AI
The five must-install MCP servers in 2026: filesystem, GitHub, Postgres, claude-in-chrome, and Sentry. Install commands, capabilities, security model, and FAQ.

Top 5 MCP Servers Every Developer Should Try in 2026

The five Model Context Protocol servers worth installing today: filesystem, GitHub, Postgres, claude-in-chrome (browser), and Sentry. With install commands, the tools they expose, and the security model.

Write LLM evals that catch regressions. Pick metrics (exact match, LLM-as-judge, embedding similarity), build a golden dataset, run on every PR, monitor trends.

How to Write LLM Evals That Catch Regressions

Write LLM evals that catch real regressions: pick the right metrics (exact match, LLM-as-judge, embedding similarity), build a golden dataset, run on every PR, and watch the trend over time.

Build an LLM agent with tool use. The agentic loop, tool-call formats on Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini, JavaScript and Python code, common failure modes.

How to Build an LLM Agent with Tool Use

Build an LLM agent with tool use: the agentic loop, the tool-call format on Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini, runnable code in JavaScript and Python, plus the common failure modes.

Add semantic search to an existing MySQL app with MySQL 9's VECTOR type and embeddings from Voyage or OpenAI. Index, query, and rank without a separate vector DB.

How to Add Semantic Search to a MySQL App

Add semantic search to an existing MySQL app with MySQL 9's VECTOR type, an embedding model (Voyage, OpenAI), and a cosine-similarity index. No separate vector database needed.

Run a local LLM with Ollama: install, pull a model, hardware floor, picking between Llama, Mistral, Qwen. When local beats cloud and when it doesn't.

How to Run a Local LLM with Ollama

Run a local LLM with Ollama: install, pull a model, the hardware floor, picking between Llama, Mistral, and Qwen, and when local is faster than cloud (and when it isn't).

Get reliable JSON from an LLM with structured-output modes on Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini. Plus Zod/Pydantic validation, retry strategies, and common pitfalls.

How to Get Reliable JSON from an LLM

Get reliable JSON out of an LLM with native structured-output modes (Anthropic tool use, OpenAI Structured Outputs, Gemini schema), plus Zod / Pydantic validation as a fallback.

Six techniques that actually reduce LLM hallucination: grounding, citations, tool use, structured outputs, explicit don't-know, and LLM-as-judge verification.

How to Stop an LLM from Hallucinating

Six techniques that actually reduce LLM hallucination: grounding with retrieved context, citation requirements, tool use for facts, structured outputs, explicit don't-know permission, and LLM-as-judge verification.

Write an effective system prompt with five parts: role, capabilities, constraints, output, refusal. Before/after examples and the structure that maximises cache hits.

How to Write an Effective System Prompt

Write an effective system prompt for an LLM with five parts: role, capabilities, constraints, output format, refusal policy. With before/after examples and the structure that maximises cache hits.