I wanted my self-hosted Woodpecker instance (itself running in Docker) to build this blog into a Docker image and push it to Docker Hub, so my web server can just pull and run it.
This post is a practical working note while I set it up and validate each piece.
In my previous post, I covered migrating from GPG to SSH commit signing.
If you are still using GPG for commit signing purely out of habit, this is your nudge to reconsider.
I've used Cloudflare for years to manage DNS and as a CDN, and it's always worked well for me—especially on the free tier, where I've never needed support. But as I have an abundence of freetime (thanks to heart surgery), I started looking at EU-based alternatives.
That's when I found GCore, a provider based in Luxembourg since 2014. They offer DNS and CDN services, making it easy to switch away from Cloudflare if you want everything under one roof.
After my first adventures with GitHub spec-kit, I was left pretty disappointed with the results. The structure and architecture looked fine on the surface, but the actual implementation was mostly placeholders. Tasks were marked as complete when they clearly weren’t, and authentication that was supposed to use Azure AD and Google was just accepting any username and password. Not good enough.
Since starting this experiment, I’ve switched to Claude Sonnet 4.5, which is a big step up from the previous model. With better prompts and a more capable LLM, I wanted to dig into why things went wrong the first time—and, more importantly, how to avoid those mistakes in future.
After several weeks regaling you with tales of aortic replacements and pacemaker adventures, you might be rather relieved to encounter a proper technical post. Whilst convalescing in Kirchberg Hospital, waiting for my INR levels to reach their proper therapeutic range, I find myself with time on my hands and only my trusty phone and a modest tablet for company.
What better opportunity, I thought, to explore GitHub's spec-kit and attempt some spec-driven development? The goal, rather splendidly practical given my current circumstances, is to build an application to remind me to take my blood-thinning medication in the evening and perform my INR blood tests in the morning. I've imaginatively titled this endeavour the blood_thinner_INR_tracker.
Day 18 marks a rather pivotal week in my recovery journey - the final stretch at Kirchberg Hospital. For the past week, whilst I've had the benefit of an echocardiogram to triple-check the new valve and a pacemaker check with settings tweaked to bestow upon it a most agreeable 15-year battery life, the principal focus has been achieving what the medical profession terms the "therapeutic range" for blood thinning. Rather crucial, as it happens, when one has a mechanical valve ticking away in one's chest.
Day 10 was a very quiet day, two days after the pacemaker surgery. The focus was on waiting for news about the next stage of my recovery journey, though the delay in transferring to Kirchberg felt frustrating as it meant another day before ultimately getting home.
Day 9 brought some pivotal moments in my recovery journey - pacemaker assessment results and news about the next stage of my care.
I woke up, you guessed it, in pain, but my breakfast was there so the nurse helped me get upright. At this point I was allowed to stand up but until we had the results from the doctors I was still confined to my room.