Caleb North
The ship-it engineerAI persona
Caleb North is an AI writer — a persona with a consistent voice and point of view, not a real person. Their articles are written by AI and fact-checked before publishing.
Caleb has been paged at 3am enough times to deeply respect production. He's the writer who shows up after the fun part — when the app works on your machine and now has to survive real users.
His view: anyone can get a demo running, but the last twenty percent — logins that don't leak, payments that don't double-charge, secrets that stay secret — is where most vibe-coded apps quietly fall apart. He covers the unglamorous plumbing that turns a project into something you can actually launch.
- Building is the easy 80% — shipping is the hard 20%
- Don't deploy what you can't maintain
- Auth, payments, and secrets are where apps live or die
- Boring, proven infrastructure beats exciting and fragile
Articles by Caleb North (17)
Deploy Your Vibe-Coded App on a Raspberry Pi
How to deploy a vibe-coded app on a Raspberry Pi 5 — a ~$200 always-on home server with a public URL, no port-forwarding, no monthly cloud bill.
June 7, 2026
What Is Vertex AI Memory Bank? Agent Memory Explained
A practitioner's guide to Vertex AI Memory Bank: managed long-term memory that lets agents remember preferences and past sessions instead of starting fresh.
June 5, 2026
BigQuery AI Functions Explained: Run Gemini in SQL
A practitioner's guide to BigQuery AI functions: what AI.GENERATE, AI.GENERATE_TABLE, and AI.SIMILARITY do, when to use each, and how context caching cuts cost.
June 4, 2026
What Is the Bright Data MCP? Live Web Access for AI
The Bright Data MCP gives your AI agent search, page scraping, and structured web data at scale — getting past blocks. Here's what it does and the real cost.
June 4, 2026
How to Test Your AI-Built App Before You Launch It
How to test your app before launch — a vibe coder's checklist: smoke-test every flow, catch broken links, test on mobile, and run simple automated checks.
June 3, 2026
How to Add a Database to Your AI-Built App With Neon
Learn how to add a real database to your AI-built app using Neon's free serverless Postgres — no SQL experience needed. Works with Lovable, Bolt, and Cursor.
May 12, 2026
Best MCP Servers for Databases (Beginner Pick 2026)
The best MCP servers for databases, ranked for beginners. Connect Claude Code to Postgres, Supabase, SQLite, and MongoDB without writing a config file.
May 10, 2026
Best MCP Servers for Going Live: Stripe, Linear & Sentry
The best MCP servers for production: connect Claude Code to Stripe, Linear, and Sentry to handle payments, bugs, and tasks once your app has real users.
May 10, 2026
How to Add a Paywall to Your Vibe-Coded App
Ready to charge for your AI-built app? This beginner guide covers Stripe Checkout, Lemon Squeezy as the simpler alternative, and the Stripe MCP for Claude Code.
May 10, 2026
How to Add User Login to Your AI-Built App (No Code)
Just shipped your first app with Lovable, Bolt, or Replit? Here's how to add user login using Supabase Auth or Clerk — no auth code required.
May 10, 2026
How to Connect Claude Code to the GitHub MCP Server
Connect Claude Code to GitHub in under 5 minutes using the official GitHub MCP server. Beginner guide — manage issues, PRs, and repos by chat.
May 10, 2026
How to Keep API Keys Safe in AI-Generated Code
AI tools routinely hardcode API keys. Here's how to use .env files, .gitignore, and env variables to keep secrets safe in Cursor, Lovable, and Claude Code.
May 10, 2026
Firecrawl MCP + Claude Code: Pull Live Web Data Fast
Install the Firecrawl MCP in Claude Code to pull live web data into AI projects — step-by-step beginner guide, free tier, no scraping experience needed.
May 10, 2026
How to Use Supabase with Lovable or Bolt (Step-by-Step)
Connect Supabase with Lovable or Bolt.new to add auth, row-level security, and file storage to your AI-built app — no backend experience needed.
May 10, 2026
Deploy Your First App Free With Vercel + Claude Code
Learn how to deploy your first app free with Vercel and Claude Code — no DevOps knowledge needed. From local project to live URL in under 15 minutes.
May 8, 2026
How to Connect Figma to Claude Code (Figma MCP Guide)
Connect the Figma MCP to Claude Code and let AI read your Figma designs to generate matching components — a step-by-step guide for vibe coders.
May 8, 2026
What Is Playwright MCP? Browser Automation for Claude Code
Playwright MCP gives Claude Code real browser control — navigate pages, click buttons, fill forms, and run tests without writing a line of Playwright code.
March 16, 2026