Configuration changes should be reversible just as quickly as they are applied. A successful update in a configuration tool does not mean the system is healthy. Human error, especially in configuration management, remains one of the most common causes of system failure. Treat config changes with the same caution as code changes because their blast radius is often larger.

A subtle failure in concurrent WAL writes can silently break durability guarantees. This article explores the “WAL hole problem,” where interrupted or partial writes leave unrecoverable gaps that halt log replay. Learn how this issue arises at the intersection of atomic offsets and non-atomic I/O, and how it was fixed in TidesDB using signal masking and footer-based recovery.

We build software that powers healthcare for over 20 million Kenyans. This is where we share the real engineering behind it, the trade-offs, the hard lessons and the problems worth solving. Welcome to the SIL Engineering Blog.

Platform Engineering is a sociotechnical approach that addresses the complexity of scaling applications within organisations. It empowers...