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kushal.st

Field notes

Writing

On frontend engineering, fintech plumbing, and what AI is doing to both. Originally published on Medium and dev.to - readable here, in full, without a paywall popup.

  1. · 3 min read

    The Environmental Footprint of a Prompt

    What actually happens in water, energy, and carbon every time you hit Enter on an AI prompt - from 0.24 Wh text queries to 290 Wh agentic workflows - and the prompting habits that shrink the bill.

    AISustainabilityData CentersEnergy
  2. · 3 min read

    Prompting is the New Search: How Conversational Interfaces Are Rewiring the Internet

    We spent twenty-five years compressing our questions into awkward keywords; conversational AI flips that loop into stateful, context-rich dialogue. How the shift from link discovery to synthetic answers is reshaping decisions, research, and the web itself.

    AISearchLLMUX
  3. · 5 min read

    The "AI Fatigue" Paradox: Why Your Digital Assistants Are Secretly Exhausting You

    Outsourcing the 'easy' tasks to AI removed the mental rest stops from the workday, replacing them with micro-vigilance, prompt-tweaking loops, and inflated output quotas. Why delegating to AI is quietly burning knowledge workers out, and four fixes to break the cycle.

    AIProductivityBurnoutFuture of Work
  4. · 3 min read

    The Axios Supply Chain Attack of 2026: Why Your package.json is a Security Time Bomb

    A hijacked maintainer account shipped poisoned axios releases carrying a typosquatted 'phantom dependency' that dropped RATs through postinstall scripts. How caret and tilde version ranges spread the malware automatically, and the pinning, npm ci, and --ignore-scripts practices that stop it.

    SecuritySupply ChainnpmJavaScript
  5. · 4 min read

    FingerprintJS is Not Enough: How to Track the Silicon, Not the Browser

    Browser fingerprints break the moment a user switches from Chrome to Safari. A blueprint for cross-browser device identification that anchors on hardware signals - GPU renderer, audio stack latency, screen geometry - plus server-side fuzzy matching to handle entropy collisions.

    FingerprintingSecurityFraud preventionJavaScript
  6. · 4 min read

    Shadow AI in the Enterprise: The Silent Codebase Killer

    When engineers quietly lean on unvetted AI tools, they leave behind 'Ghost AI' - unowned code, invisible data bridges, and IP leaks. What Shadow AI actually costs an enterprise, and how governance beats a ban.

    Shadow AISecurityAI GovernanceEnterprise
  7. · 4 min read

    Deterministic AI: Why Your Agents Need State Machines

    LLMs are probabilistic guessers, which makes free-roaming agents a liability in production. Why wrapping agents in state machines - with tools like LangGraph and n8n - buys you reliability, error handling, and observability.

    AI AgentsState machinesLLMsArchitecture
  8. · 3 min read

    AePS Explained: How Your Thumbprint Became Your ATM Card

    How the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System lets anyone withdraw cash, deposit money, or check a balance with just an Aadhaar number and a fingerprint - how a transaction actually flows, why it matters for financial inclusion, and how to stay safe using it.

    FintechAePSPaymentsIndia
  9. · 4 min read

    Beyond the Nonce: Securing React Apps in the Age of Agentic AI

    AI agents now browse and click through your React app - and they can be tricked into doing things a human never would. Practical defences: scrubbing UI text for prompt injection, WebAuthn proof-of-intent for sensitive actions, DOM honeypots, and a stricter CSP.

    ReactSecurityAgentic AIFrontend
  10. · 5 min read

    The Monolith is Dead (Long Live the Monolith?): A 2026 Guide to Micro Frontends

    A pragmatic look at micro-frontends with Module Federation - why independent deploys and domain-split teams are worth it, the performance and security taxes you pay, and when a monolith is still the right call.

    Micro-frontendsArchitectureModule FederationFrontend
  11. · 1 min read

    I Built a Wrapper to Fix the Two Biggest Problems with localStorage

    Why localStorage's lack of expiry and plain-text storage keep biting web developers, and how a zero-dependency TypeScript wrapper - @kushalst/local-storage-expiry - adds per-key TTL and lightweight XOR+Base64 obfuscation to fix both.

    localStorageTypeScriptnpmWeb development
  12. · 3 min read

    Guide to Mandatory Screen Resolutions for UI Testing with Google Chrome Developer Tools

    The desktop, mobile, and tablet resolutions worth putting in every UI test suite - from 1920x1080 down to potato-PC 1280x720 - and how to add each one as a custom emulated device in Chrome DevTools.

    UI testingChrome DevToolsFrontendResponsive design
  13. · 2 min read

    Setting up Mac for Web Development

    A checklist for turning a fresh Mac into a web-dev machine: Homebrew, iTerm2, the fish shell, Rectangle, Alfred, VS Code with a starter set of extensions, Fira Code, and Node.

    macOSWeb developmentToolingSetup
  14. · 1 min read

    Discord Notifications on Google Form Submission

    Wire a Google Form to a Discord channel in five steps: grab a webhook, drop a small Apps Script into the form's Script Editor, and add an onSubmit trigger that posts each response as a rich embed.

    DiscordGoogle FormsWebhooksAutomation

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