Engineering Blog

Project Card Authoring Standards

Muhammad Ibtisam — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Project Card Authoring Standards

This document defines the exact rules for writing project cards in data/projects.yaml for projects.ibtisam-iq.com. Every rule was extracted from real mistakes caught and corrected during the authoring sessions. If an LLM is reading this, follow every rule exactly.

The YAML file is the single source of truth. A push to data/projects.yaml triggers node scripts/generate-projects.js, which auto-generates src/data/projects.ts. The generated TypeScript file must never be edited directly.

My Core AI Engineering Persona

Muhammad Ibtisam — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My Core AI Engineering Persona

Writing clear, professional content is just as critical as writing immutable infrastructure code. Whether I am drafting a runbook, an architectural design document, or a professional summary, I have defined a strict LLM persona to ensure consistency.

Whenever I use AI to assist with writing, I provide it with a link to this exact reference page. This ensures the output reflects my actual engineering philosophy, experience level, and writing style. It avoids the arrogance of a "10-year Principal Architect," completely bans "robotic AI speak," and maintains strict production-grade standards.

MkDocs CI Build Fails Locally It Works: The Pygments 2.19 NoneType Trap

Muhammad Ibtisam — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

MkDocs CI Build Fails, Locally It Works: The Pygments 2.19 NoneType Trap

Everything was green for months. One new folder added, one push made — and CI started crashing with AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'replace'. Local builds: perfectly fine. GitHub Actions: dead.

This is the full root cause analysis and fix.

My Self-Hosted CI/CD Lab: Jenkins, SonarQube, and Nexus on Custom Domains with SSL

Muhammad Ibtisam — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My Self-Hosted CI/CD Lab: Jenkins, SonarQube, and Nexus on Custom Domains with SSL

A four-node CI/CD lab — each service on its own server, its own subdomain, its own SSL cert — reproduced from a single command. No public IP. No manual setup.