SYSTEM TOPOLOGY AWS

12 services All healthy

TRAFFIC FLOW LIVE

2.4k req/min

12ms p95 latency

0.02% error rate

SECURITY POSTURE

✓IAM least-privilege

✓Secrets hygiene

✓Zero exposed ports

✓Audit logs active

DEPLOYMENT PIPELINE

Build

Test

Deploy

Health

v2.4.1 Staging → Prod

system: optimal

Infrastructure that makes production feel clear, safe, and steady again.

Technical studio for cloud systems, inherited-environment repair, and production hardening. No relay layer.

Start a project Open the lab

Seamless Scaling

Scale with confidence, automatically.

Ironclad Security

Built-in protection at every layer.

Predictable Perf

Consistent uptime and low latency.

Zero Downtime

Deployments that don't wake anyone up.

Uptime SLA 99.97%

Latency p95 12ms

Active incidents 0

Coverage Global

Health score 98.4

Delivery lanes

Three entry points. One standard: calmer production.

RuntimeForge is sold like a studio, but delivered like an operator. The work is scoped by what is actually wrong, not by decorative package tiers.

Lane 01

Build the first real platform

For startup teams moving past improvisation

When production is still running on a few heroic decisions, this is the pass that turns it into infrastructure with repeatable deploys, isolated environments, and a cleaner operating model.

Terraform foundations across VPCs, ECS, Aurora, ALB, Route 53, and secrets

Environment separation that survives real usage instead of presentation slides

Delivery flows that stop depending on one careful person being awake

Lane 02

Rehabilitate the inherited estate

For growth-stage and enterprise teams

For environments with drift, rising cost, inherited assumptions, and the sense that one wrong edit could wake up an incident channel.

Audit of cost, blast radius, access, drift, and hidden coupling

Migration planning with controlled risk and explicit rollback paths

Runbooks and handoff notes that leave the team stronger than before

Lane 03

Hardening after the ugly surprise

For teams carrying new risk or incident pressure

Containment, cleanup, access review, and targeted hardening for systems that already exist and need to be made safer without turning into a ceremonial rewrite.

IAM review, least-privilege cleanup, and secrets hygiene

Containment and post-incident scoping with concrete follow-through

Hardening passes shaped around the environment you already have

Selected builds

Proof that the studio can build, not just advise.

The through-line is not one favorite stack. It is the habit of making technical systems more coherent, more inspectable, and more survivable than they were before.

Focus

Cloud, networking, firmware, tooling, and awkward systems worth finishing properly.

Method

Push until the vague part becomes specific enough to operate and hand off cleanly.

Full GitHub inventory

Detection lab Public repo

NoSleep-Ops

Updated 2026-03-26

A contained environment for traffic and patterns you do not want to generate in a real estate.

Tags 04

Access repo only

Last ship Mar 26, 2026

Source GitHub public module

Surface Repository only

pythondockersuricataelk

GitHub

Systems networking Public repo

FireRouter

Updated 2026-01-27

A Rust networking build for moments when the router is technically up and operationally unhelpful.

Tags 03

Access repo only

Last ship Jan 27, 2026

Source GitHub public module

Surface Repository only

rustroutingsystems

GitHub

Firmware Public repo Live surface

dsl-asuswrt-merlin.ng

Updated 2023-10-25

Custom Merlin firmware for edge hardware that still deserved maintenance and a better operating posture.

Tags 03

Access repo + live

Last ship Oct 25, 2023

Source GitHub public module

Surface External live surface

firmwareembeddedrouter

GitHub Live surface

Hardware control Public repo

Marlin_corexy

Updated 2023-05-23

A printer firmware fork tuned until the hardware behaved like it should have from the start.

Tags 03

Access repo only

Last ship May 23, 2023

Source GitHub public module

Surface Repository only

c++marlinhardware

GitHub

Automation Public repo

opscraft

Updated 2025-06-27

PowerShell utilities for repetitive infrastructure work that needed to collapse into a smaller set of commands.

Tags 02

Access repo only

Last ship Jun 27, 2025

Source GitHub public module

Surface Repository only

powershellautomation

GitHub

Creative systems Public repo

Comicquant

Updated 2026-01-23

A TypeScript experiment where structure, sequencing, and visual systems are allowed to be expressive.

Tags 03

Access repo only

Last ship Jan 23, 2026

Source GitHub public module

Surface Repository only

typescriptuicreative

GitHub

Writing

Field notes from real systems, not content marketing.

Incident patterns, infrastructure mistakes, hardening work, and the kind of technical writing that keeps the useful details intact for buyers, operators, and future teammates.

Open the archive

Primary case file incident response Draft

Archive / Live

Ref WHEN 30 ACCOUNTS PICKED UP HIDDEN EMAIL ALIASES

Published Mar 08, 2026

Status Draft

When 30 Google Workspace accounts picked up hidden email aliases overnight.

A persistence-by-alias pattern that hides in plain sight in the Google Workspace admin console, and the Admin SDK Apps Script that cleaned it up in under a minute.

Open case file

terraform Feb 12, 2026 Draft

Case THINGS THAT BIT ME WHEN STAGING AND PROD SHARED ONE SMALL THING

State Draft

Things that bit me when staging and prod "shared just one small thing."

A field guide to the environment-isolation failures that show up six months into a Terraform rollout, from shared secrets to DNS drift.

Review entry

iac tooling Jan 18, 2026 Draft

Case WHEN TERRAFORM ISNT THE ANSWER

State Draft

When Terraform isn't the answer.

Pulumi, CDK, Ansible, plain shell — and the project shapes where Terraform is actually the wrong pick. A working taxonomy for picking the right IaC tool.

Review entry

About RuntimeForge

Command briefing

Direct access, technical range, and fewer layers between decision and execution.

RuntimeForge is structured like an operating brief: clear owner, clear capability, and a short path from decision to implementation.

Operator model

The person you brief is the person reading the logs, making the changes, and writing the handoff.

Execution bias

Decisions stay close to implementation, which keeps infrastructure work moving when stakes and ambiguity climb.

I’m Dean Whitlock. RuntimeForge is my company and technical studio. The work lives in AWS accounts, Terraform state, IAM sprawl, delivery pipelines, and the awkward edges that show up once infrastructure becomes consequential.

No relay layer, no internal translation gap, no project handed off to someone meeting it secondhand. The brief, the changes, and the handoff stay connected because they are handled by the same operator.

Tooling matters, but not as identity. The useful thing is choosing the approach that fits the system, then leaving it clearer, safer, and easier to operate than it was before.

Capability panel

The stack is a vocabulary, not the whole sales story.

Briefing ready

Range matters because startup platform work and enterprise cleanup are rarely the same problem twice. The panel below shows the operating shape more clearly than a raw tool list.

Platform delivery

AWS foundations, delivery pipelines, and environment shaping for teams that need clear operating paths.

Infrastructure recovery

Untangling IAM sprawl, brittle Terraform state, inherited automation, and systems that are harder to trust than they should be.

Security surfaces

Network controls, access boundaries, and edge hardening where operational safety matters as much as uptime.

Handoff clarity

Runbooks, decision notes, and post-change context that make the next operator faster instead of more dependent.

Tooling range

Selected surface

terraformpulumiaws-cdkansiblekubernetesgithub-actionsgoogle-admin-sdknftableswireguarddockercloudflarecaddy

Briefing protocol

Scope the system, identify the operational risk, make the change, and leave behind something the next person can run without guesswork.

Direct access

You are hiring the person doing the work.

Operational empathy

The target is not clever infrastructure. It is dependable infrastructure.

Contact

Start the brief before the system gets more expensive.

Scoped builds, cleanup work, hardening passes, lab-driven prototypes, audits, and exploratory calls all fit here. Specific detail helps more than polished detail.

Transmission intake

Message surface Briefing open

A few concrete details help: what is broken, what is risky, what already exists, whether you need implementation or audit depth, and when the issue starts costing money or sleep.

form relay not configured in this environment

The form still validates locally. For real sends, set PUBLIC_FORMSPREE_ID or use the direct-contact panel.

Command routing

Direct channels Operator online

Short version: you are contacting the person doing the architecture, cleanup, hardening, and studio execution work.

Response window

Usually same day. Officially one business day.

Best fit

AWS cleanup, security hardening, platform rebuilds, Terraform reality checks, and inherited environments that already feel risky.

Phone

Book a call 30 min

Scheduling stays behind a click until it is actually useful.