Hi, I'm Aaron

Advisory & Fractional Leadership

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On-demand technical leadership for startups that need senior cloud and infrastructure expertise without the full-time overhead.

7 Things Leaders Say That Actually Matter

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout my career leading SREs, DBAs, and full stack developers across SaaS, aerospace, defense, and retail, I have consistently promoted people who demonstrated a specific communication pattern. These seven phrases signal ownership, strategic clarity, and leadership maturity.

Start Here

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The best of aarongxa.com, organized by what you’re looking for.

For Engineers (SRE, Platform, DevOps)

Dive into production debugging, infrastructure optimization, and real-world fixes.

Fixing GLM-5.1 Timeouts in Hermes Agent - Root-cause debugging that led to an upstream PR. A 7-minute walk through three interacting systems and the one-line fix.
Debugging: When Your Cloudflare Worker Returns Null - How I diagnosed a silent failure in production and added defensive code to prevent it from happening again.
Optimizing Cloudflare Workers KV: A 91% Reduction in Write Operations - From 2,400 writes/day to ~216 with smarter caching and change detection.

For AI Builders & Agent Engineers

Practical experience with the tools and models shaping the agent landscape.

Fixing GLM-5.1 Timeouts in Hermes Agent

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

GLM-5.1 timing out on Hermes Agent? It’s not the model and it’s not your network - it’s a server-side 30s idle timeout on api.z.ai. Here’s the fix and the PR.

Hermes Agent: Setup, Tips, and Tricks for the Self-Improving AI Agent

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Everything I’ve learned setting up and using Hermes Agent - the self-improving AI agent that remembers, learns, and runs wherever you need it.

Control GlobalProtect from the macOS Terminal

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Stop clicking through VPN menus. Use a simple command-line tool to control GlobalProtect on macOS with start, stop, toggle, and kill commands.

Adding Podcast Support to My Spotify Integration

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was listening to a podcast on Spotify and glanced at my blog’s homepage. The “Now Playing” widget showed some random track I’d listened to hours ago.

The podcast was completely invisible.

Turns out, the Spotify API doesn’t return podcast episodes by default. You have to ask for them explicitly.

The Discovery

My Spotify Cloudflare Worker had been happily fetching currently playing tracks for months. The endpoint was simple:

const NOW_PLAYING_ENDPOINT = 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/me/player/currently-playing';

Works great for music.

Orbital: A Minimal Desktop Pomodoro Timer for macOS

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem with Productivity Timers

Most pomodoro apps demand attention. They want to live in your dock, send notifications, and add another icon to your already crowded menu bar. When you’re trying to focus, the last thing you need is more visual clutter.

I wanted something different: a timer that’s always visible but never intrusive. Something that becomes part of my desktop rather than fighting for attention.

Something beautiful.

Low key. But not so minimal.

Debugging: When Your Cloudflare Worker Returns Null

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem

My blog’s homepage has a “Currently Reading” widget powered by a Cloudflare Worker that fetches data from my Goodreads RSS feed. It had been working fine for weeks, but one day I noticed it was showing “Nothing currently”-despite actively reading a book.

A quick curl to the API endpoint confirmed the issue:

curl https://goodreads-api.aarongriffith06.workers.dev

{"current":null}

The worker was responding successfully (HTTP 200), but returning null.

And wasn’t right.

The Ambition Loop: A 10-Year Retrospective

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Reflecting on a decade of personal growth, this post explores how ambition is engineered through five core pillars: idea generation, movement, unrestricted reading, writing, and mindful fueling. The journey from avoiding ambition to embracing it through autodidacticism and teaching.

The Onboarding Algorithm: A 30-Day System for Tech Leaders

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A repeatable playbook for tech leaders’ first 30 days: mental reset, discovery mode, pattern recognition, team refactoring, stakeholder alignment, MVP wins, and transparent retrospectives.

The Executive's Guide to Vibe Coding

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With deep roots in SaaS and leadership experience spanning Aerospace/Defense, Education, and Retail, I currently lead Site Reliability Engineers, Database Administrators, and Full Stack Developers. In this role, I need to stay technical enough to support my teams without getting stuck in the weeds.

The principles below have evolved over the years, but the goal remains the same: maintain technical depth without becoming a blocker on critical projects. This guide looked significantly different before LLMs, but leveraging AI has refined the list entirely.

Things I Believe In

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A collection of personal beliefs and principles that guide my approach to learning, productivity, and living intentionally.

My Shell Setup: Terminal Configuration with Ghostty, zsh, and AI Powered Tools

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A complete guide to a modern shell setup with Ghostty, dual shell support, tmux workflows, Starship prompts, and AI-powered command generation.

Optimizing Cloudflare Workers KV: A 91% Reduction in Write Operations

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem

I woke up to an error message I never expected to see: “KV put() limit exceeded for the day.” My Cloudflare Workers, which power the Spotify and Goodreads integrations on my blog, had blown through their daily quota of 1,000 KV write operations. This was a problem.

After digging into the logs and analytics, the numbers were shocking. My workers were performing approximately 2,400 KV writes per day. That’s more than double the free tier limit, and far beyond what should be necessary for displaying currently playing music and reading status.

Adding Goodreads and Spotify Integration: A mini "now" page

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 02:18:59 +0000

How I built a live ‘Now’ page using Cloudflare Workers to display what I’m reading and listening to in real-time.

About

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR

I'm Aaron Griffith - Staff Engineer & Tech Leader based in Pittsburgh, PA. 🇺🇸

What I Do

I lead Site Reliability Engineers, Database Administrators, and Full Stack Developers - keeping production systems running while building the infrastructure that powers them. My work sits at the intersection of AI agent infrastructure, platform engineering, and automation.

AI Agent Infrastructure: Daily-driving and contributing to Hermes Agent, building local LLM tooling with Ollama, and shipping upstream fixes.
Platform & Production Engineering: Running Cloudflare Workers in production with KV caching, debugging edge cases at scale, and optimizing for cost and reliability.
macOS & Linux Automation: Building CLI tools that remove friction - from VPN control to Pomodoro timers to AI-powered shell command generation.
Technical Leadership: Frameworks for onboarding tech leaders, scaling engineering teams, and maintaining technical depth as an executive.

Where I’ve Worked

I’ve shipped code and led teams across Aerospace/Defense, SaaS, Retail, and Education - four industries, each with their own reliability requirements, compliance regimes, and scale challenges.

Enhancing Your Linux CLI Experience: Ten Essential Tools for September 2025

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:17:41 -0400

Discover a collection of powerful Linux CLI tools to supercharge your terminal workflow…

Building a Serverless URL Attribution System: Lambda@Edge for Mobile App Analytics

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 02:18:59 +0000

Leveraging Lambda Edge for SMS campaigns

Why Emotional Detatchment Matters in Tech

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:47:41 -0400

Leadership in tech requires…

Ansible: Rapid Start Cheatsheet

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 18:52:57 +0000

Getting started with Ansible

Kubernetes Namespaces Explained: Organizing and Managing Cluster Resources

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 17:37:40 +0000

Learn how to effectively use Kubernetes namespaces to isolate and manage resources in your cluster. A beginner-friendly guide covering creation, management, and quotas.

Kings Crew Gaming

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Challenge

Kings Crew Gaming, an ambitious esports team and vibrant gaming community, needed to elevate their brand and amplify their social media presence to compete in a saturated market. They required a strategic partner to professionalize their operations and create a visual identity that resonated with the modern gaming generation.

The Solution

I led a comprehensive project to revitalize their brand identity and streamline operations through a structured three-stage process: Brand Analysis, Creative Overhaul, and Launch & Optimization.

50 Things About Me: 2015

Mon, 25 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A collection of 50 personal facts, preferences, and quirks that reveal who I am beyond my professional resume.

Clear Disk Space in /boot

Mon, 11 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When /boot fills up, remove old kernel packages in 3 simple steps using package-cleanup.

[Archive] Useful Linux One-Liners for System Administrators

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a list of one-liners that I use on a weekly basis.

10 Useful Linux One-Liners for System Administrators

Sun, 05 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Here is a list of one-liners that I use on a weekly basis. Some of these commands allow for client friendly results, while others serve the purpose of a tool in a toolbox; perfect for troubleshooting.

[Archive] Linux Commands – What to Check

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Not Sure what to check when troubleshooting Linux Systems? This quick guide will help you troubleshoot the OS.