How Docker and OCI image layers represent filesystem changes, why deleting a file needs special whiteout entries, and what happens if you create a file called .wh.foo.

How to write reusable middleware for Rust Lambda functions using tower, the generic middleware engine that already underpins the AWS Lambda Rust runtime. Includes a complete DynamoDB-backed IP rate limiter with SAM deployment.

After 458 issues, 3,073+ curated links, and nearly a decade of weekly curation, FullStack Bulletin is closing. Here's the story of the journey, why it's ending, and what lives on.

Learn how I added Bluesky likes and avatars to my Astro blog using the bluesky-likes web components package. No API keys, no server-side code, just a few lines of Astro magic.

Luciano Mammino's 2025 year in review: releasing the fourth edition of Node.js Design Patterns, progressing on Crafting Lambda Functions in Rust, approaching 5 years at FourTheorem, public speaking, AWS Bites podcast, open source contributions, and some major personal milestones.

The fourth edition of Node.js Design Patterns is here. As one of the authors, I share why we wrote a new edition, what's new, and my thoughts on where Node.js is heading.

Learn how to debug silent failures in AWS API Gateway HTTP when your OIDC provider doesn't implement the .well-known/openid-configuration endpoint. Enable FailOnWarnings to catch these issues before they break your production deployment.

In his 2024 year-in-review, Luciano Mammino covers his work in Rust, serverless AWS projects, his contributions to open source projects like Middy, public speaking engagements, the AWS Bites podcast, and personal milestones.

Discover the journey behind FullStack Bulletin, a weekly newsletter for full-stack developers with 404 curated issues over 8 years. Learn about its origins, technical implementation, and future plans.

Announcing Crafting Lambda Functions in Rust, a new book that guides you through building efficient, reliable, and cost-effective AWS Lambda functions using Rust, written by Luciano Mammino and James Eastham. Learn why Rust and serverless are a perfect match. Early access is now available at rust-la...

This article discuss the reason why I wanted to migrate this blog from Gatsby to Astro and the process I followed to do it. Plus a bunch of interesting and quirky bugs that I had to troubleshoot and fix along the way.

In 2023, Luciano Mammino attended his first re:Invent, grew open source projects like Middy, continued podcasting on AWS Bites, and strengthened connections through public speaking and live coding. He also contributed to sustainability through LifeFoliage's Landscape Hunt game.

The software industry sees an interesting tension between generative AI capturing the software lifecycle and low-level languages aiming for better performance. As developers we must understand these trends and find a strategy. Learn one or both?

When building a custom API Gateway authorizer, mysterious 500 errors can happen. This post shows how to enable CloudWatch logging for API Gateway to inspect the logs and debug problems.

Rust is an ideal language for writing AWS Lambda functions. Its performance can reduce execution time and memory usage, lowering costs. Its safety features like no nulls and error handling can reduce bugs.

This article walks through the challenges of cross-compiling a Rust web app from a Mac Silicon machine to an x86 Docker container using musl, RusTLS, multi-stage builds and other techniques to produce a small container image.

This article explores the multifaceted definition of a senior software engineer. It covers the technical skills like going a level deeper and having a broad understanding, as well as soft skills like communication, autonomy, business acumen, and leadership. It provides tips on how to grow, such as p...

In 2022 Luciano Mammino was awarded AWS Serverless Hero, confirmed as Microsoft MVP, became Codemotion Ambassador, spoke at 25 events, produced 45 AWS Bites podcast episodes, streamed live coding 36 times, surpassed 8M downloads for Middy and much more. His plans for 2023 include growing his AWS and...

Learn how to create a private, invite-only website using Next.js, AirTable, custom React hooks, and Vercel deploy. The post covers backend APIs in Next.js, data storage with AirTable, validating access with invite codes, collecting user input, and deploying the final app.

The AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification is one of the toughest IT certifications. This post shares preparation tips, exam strategies, study resources, and sample questions to help you succeed.

In 2021 I joined fourTheorem, became a Microsoft MVP, spoke at many conferences, learned Rust, contributed to open source and much more. I reflect on my professional achievements over the past year.

This post explains how to conditionally create resources in AWS CDK using CfnCondition. It provides a practical example of creating an S3 bucket based on an SSM parameter value. The post covers defining a condition, attaching it to a low-level CDK construct, and importing the conditionally created r...

This post explains how to use CDK to provision Ubuntu EC2 instances on AWS. It covers finding the right AMI, adding security groups, using init scripts, installing AWS utilities, and more.

The boto3 Python SDK allows intercepting requests before they are sent to AWS through an event handler system. This article shows how to use it to gzip the payload of PutMetricData requests sent to CloudWatch.

This article explores how to convert values to strings in Rust using traits like Debug, Display and ToString. It explains the difference between user-facing and debug representations.

This article explores return type polymorphism in Rust through examples like Default::default() and a custom dice rolling library. The technique allows writing generic functions that can return different types based on usage. Useful for extensible APIs.

This article provides a list of free and paid resources to learn Rust in 2021 including books, blogs, videos, newsletters, podcasts, communities, exercises, workshops, and open source projects.

Luciano Mammino reflects on his 2020, including publishing Node.js Design Patterns Third Edition book, giving 13 conference talks, joining Fabfitfun as Principal Engineer, releasing Middy 1.0, launching Linkerflix MVP, and setting goals for improving as a software engineer, cloud architect, and indi...

This article summarizes the experience of two developers learning Rust by building an open source project and having it reviewed live by a Rust expert. It covers the improvements suggested during the review, including simplifying project structure, adding documentation, handling strings, removing co...

This article explains what JWTs (JSON Web Tokens) are, looking at their internal structure with header, body, and signature. It illustrates how they enable stateless authentication and authorization in distributed systems.