# The Broken Link

> Technical blog by Alex de Sousa — BEAM engineer since 2012, Elixir alchemist since 2015, and open source author. Writing about Elixir, OTP, and software engineering.

## About

Alex de Sousa is a software engineer specialising in Elixir and distributed systems. He started his career with Erlang in 2012, giving him deep OTP expertise. He is the author of several open source Elixir libraries/apps including Planck (coding harness), AyeSQL (raw SQL), Skogsrå (configuration), and Yggdrasil (pub-sub).

- Site: https://thebroken.link
- CV: https://thebroken.link/cv
- Feed: https://thebroken.link/feed_en.xml
- GitHub: https://github.com/alexdesousa
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajdesousa

## Posts
- [J-Space: Where AI Thoughts Live](https://thebroken.link/j-space-where-ai-thoughts-live/) — Anthropic just found a hidden workspace inside Claude where silent reasoning happens before a single token is written. Here is where it lives and how it works.
- [Building Planck #4: Introducing Planck, an Agent Harness in Elixir](https://thebroken.link/building-planck-introducing-planck/) — Three constraints shaped Planck: context, specialization, and model cost. Here is what an AI agent framework looks like when you build on OTP.
- [Building Planck #3: The 20/80 Split: Why the Future Is Mostly Local](https://thebroken.link/building-planck-the-20-80-split/) — Frontier models are brilliant but expensive. Local models are fast and cheap but need guidance. Here's how to combine them.
- [Building Planck #2: Specialized Teams vs General Agents](https://thebroken.link/building-planck-specialized-teams-vs-general-agents/) — Why one AI trying to do everything produces mediocre results and how to design teams that don't.
- [Building Planck #1: Context Is the Real Problem](https://thebroken.link/building-planck-context-is-the-real-problem/) — Why giving your AI agent more context usually makes it worse and what to do instead.
- [ICON 2.0: Realtime Decentralized Quote Prices](https://thebroken.link/icon-2.0-realtime-decentralized-quote-prices/) — By leveraging one of ICON's BTP features, we get realtime quote prices from Balanced DEx
- [My Worst Bug](https://thebroken.link/my-worst-bug/) — Debugging C/C++ can sometimes be a nightmare.
- [My Road to 8 Week Streak](https://thebroken.link/my-road-to-8-week-streak/) — Writing is hard. Writing requires practice.
- [AyeSQL: Writing Raw SQL in Elixir](https://thebroken.link/ayesql-writing-raw-sql-in-elixir/) — Sometimes good'ol SQL is better than any abstraction.
- [Elixir Pubsub In Less Than 50 Lines](https://thebroken.link/elixir-pubsub-in-less-than-50-lines/) — A small Elixir pubsub implementation using built-in module :pg2
- [Managing Dotfiles with Ansible](https://thebroken.link/managing-dotfiles-with-ansible/) — A small tutorial on how to use Ansible to manage your dotfiles.
- [Oath: Don't Loose Your Keys!](https://thebroken.link/oath-dont-loose-your-keys/) — A ZSH plugin for handling your keys.
- [Skogsrå: Simplifying Your Elixir Configuration](https://thebroken.link/skogsra-simplifying-your-elixir-configuration/) — Improving Elixir configurations for small and large projects.
- [Yggdrasil: Easy Pub-Sub in Elixir](https://thebroken.link/yggdrasil-easy-pub-sub-in-elixir/) — An overview of Yggdrasil's capabilities.
- [Syntax highlighting in Jekyll](https://thebroken.link/syntax-highlighting-in-jekyll/) — Using Redcarpet markdown renderer to add pygments to Jekyll