Notes from the space between design and code.

"दाइ, फ्रीलान्स गर्ने कि जागिर खाने?" यो प्रश्न मलाई जुनियर साथीहरूले सबैभन्दा धेरै सोध्छन्। मेरो इमानदार जवाफ: दुवैको मूल्य छ, तर कुन समयमा कुन रोज्ने भन्ने कुरा नै सबैभन्दा महत्त्वपूर्ण हो।

Every estimate I gave early in my career was really a guess about the parts I understood, with the parts I did not understand quietly set to zero. That is why they were always wrong in the same direction.

Most bad agent output is not the model's fault. It is a vague ticket handed to a very fast contractor who cannot ask follow-up questions. Fix the ticket and the code gets noticeably better.

हाम्रो अफिसको Wi-Fi मा जुन एप एक सेकेन्डमा खुल्छ, त्यही एप गाउँमा एक डन्डी डाटामा तीस सेकेन्डसम्म सेतो स्क्रिन देखाउँछ। प्रयोगकर्ताले त्यतिन्जेल पर्खँदैनन्। यो लेख त्यो तीस सेकेन्ड घटाउने व्यावहारिक तरिकाबारे हो।

Flip white to black, black to white, ship it. That is how most dark modes start, and it is exactly why so many of them feel harsh, flat, and slightly broken at 11pm when someone actually uses them.

पोखराको कुनै पनि रेस्टुरेन्टको काउन्टरमा हेर्नुस्, एउटा मोटो कापी भेटिन्छ। त्यो कापी नै उनीहरूको database हो। हामी डेभलपरको काम त्यो कापीलाई हटाउनु होइन, त्यसले गर्ने काम अझ सजिलो बनाउनु हो।

Most React apps I review that use Redux aren't managing complex client state. They're caching server data by hand, with a lot of ceremony. Take that job away and the store that's left is usually small enough to delete.

आज मेरो जन्मदिन हो, र यो दिन मैले एउटा सानो निर्णय गरेँ: अबदेखि यो ब्लगमा नेपालीमा पनि लेख्ने। अंग्रेजी लेख बन्द हुँदैनन्, तर कतै न कतै कुनै विद्यार्थीलाई आफ्नै भाषामा पढ्न पाउनु पर्छ भन्ने लाग्यो।

A service worker is a small script that sits between your page and the network, deciding what happens to every request. Once that clicks, offline pages, instant repeat visits and "new version available" toasts stop feeling like magic.

There are dozens of polished Japanese learning apps. I still built my own. Not because I thought I'd beat them, but because I wanted an app that matched how I actually study, and because building it taught me more than any tutorial could.

Most apps are built on fibre and tested on office Wi-Fi. Then they meet a farmer on one bar of mobile data, a waiter in a basement restaurant, or a commuter on a bus between towns. That's where the real design work starts.

Designs usually show the happy path: a full table, a perfect profile, a dashboard with clean numbers. Users spend a surprising amount of time somewhere else, staring at a spinner, an error, or a blank screen that explains nothing.

I don't reach for Next.js because it's popular. I reach for it because it answers the questions I'd otherwise spend the first week of every project arguing about: routing, rendering, data loading, images, and where the server code lives.

The code is rarely what sinks a project. What sinks it is a requirement nobody wrote down, a decision nobody owned, or a "quick change" that quietly doubled the scope. Those problems don't show up in a stack trace.

Good farming knowledge in Nepal exists. It's just scattered across PDFs, government pages, radio programs and the memory of experienced farmers. I've been building a platform to make it findable, in Nepali, on a weak connection.

I use coding agents every day, and they write a lot of my code. They don't decide how my systems work. That line, between typing and thinking, is the one I've learned to protect.

I run Next.js, Django, PostgreSQL, Flutter, Figma and a couple of coding agents on a fanless laptop, and it handles it. Here's how my MacBook Air M4 is set up, what I install first, and what I deliberately leave off.

Most dashboards fail the same way: they show everything the database knows and call it insight. The ones that work start from a much smaller question. What does this person need to decide or do in the next five minutes?

A lot of software built in Nepal is a copy of something built for San Francisco, with the same assumptions about fast internet, English-speaking users and card payments. The interesting problems here are the ones those assumptions hide.

For years my job was to close tickets. Now my job is to make sure the right tickets exist, that someone can close them, and that closing them actually ships something. Five months in, here's what that shift has taught me.

Adding a second language to a Next.js app is not hard. Adding it in a way that doesn't leak English strings, break your fonts, or confuse Google takes a bit more thought. Here's the setup I use for English and Nepali in Next.js 16.

AI didn't make me a faster typist. It changed which parts of my job take time. The typing got cheap, so the thinking, reviewing and deciding became the whole job, and I had to get better at those.

My portfolio is heavy on purpose: scroll-driven frame animations, video backdrops, a lot of images. That made it a perfect candidate for a service worker. Here's exactly how I turned it into an installable PWA that keeps working offline.

Two roles is an if-statement. Fifteen roles is a system, and if you build it like an if-statement you end up with permission checks scattered across a hundred files. Here's how I designed access control for NovaRestro instead.

Folder structure feels like bikeshedding until month four, when nobody can find anything and every change touches six unrelated files. This is the React and Django layout I keep coming back to, and why.

A restaurant looks simple from the dining table. Behind the counter it's a real-time system with money, inventory, people and hungry customers all moving at once. NovaRestro is my attempt to model that honestly.

Most design handoffs fail quietly. Nobody fights about it; the build just drifts a few pixels and a few decisions away from the design until the product feels off. Here's the workflow I use to stop that drift.

My stack is boring on purpose. Every tool on this list earned its place by surviving real deadlines, real clients and real bugs at 1 a.m., not by trending on a Tuesday.

Color is one of the most impactful elements of design. It can evoke emotions, guide user behavior, and set the tone for an entire project. As a budding designer, mastering color theory has been a rewarding journey filled with experimentation, learning, and plenty of 'aha' moments. Here’s a look at how I approach choosing palettes for designs.

The journey from a rough sketch to a polished wireframe is a transformative experience for any designer. As someone new to the field, I’ve learned that this process isn’t just about visualizing ideas; it’s about creating a blueprint that guides the entire design project. Here’s an inside look at how I approach this critical phase of design.

Bringing static designs to life was something I always found fascinating. Interactive prototypes bridge the gap between an idea and its execution, offering a tangible way to experience how users might interact with a design. As a beginner, learning to create prototypes felt like unlocking a new level in design, and this guide reflects my journey through this exciting process.