Notes on building software for the edge

The pitch for edge computing is usually latency, and latency matters. But the deeper change is operational: the unit of deployment stops being a region and starts being a function.\n\n## What actually changes\n\n- State moves out. Any state that lives in memory is a bug waiting to be discovered. We design for externalized state first — databases, objects, and caches with explicit consistency.\n- Cold starts become a budget. Initialization cost is part of the architecture record, not an afterthought.\n- Observability gets harder, not easier. Traces must cross isolates. Names, IDs, and propagation need to be designed, not configured.\n\n## What does not change\n\nCorrectness, restraint, and measurement still win. A slow design made fast by geography is still a slow design.\n\n*Sample article shipped with the site — replace it with your own writing from the admin dashboard.*