iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 30/06/2026

New article: Taming production database migrations How to use expand-and-contract to ship schema changes without downtime, broken clients, or permanent compatibility cruft. www.lirbank.com/taming-produ... Thanks @andrelandgraf.com and @neon.com for the backing!

lirbank.com

Taming production database migrations

Use expand-and-contract to ship database migrations with confidence.

111

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 17/06/2026

Neon Testing now supports Bun Test! v3.0.0 lets you run Bun and Vitest integration tests against isolated Neon Postgres branches, with automatic DATABASE_URL setup and cleanup. Get it here: www.npmjs.com/package/neon... Release notes: github.com/starmode-bas...

npmjs.com

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 15/03/2026

Install it: npx skills add neondatabase/agent-skills Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and others. github.com/neondatabase...

github.com

001

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 15/03/2026

Built a new agent skill for @neon.com's agent-skills repo. It helps AI coding agents find the query patterns that quietly run up your Postgres egress bill.

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

6/ The cross-provider penalty is effectively zero when both providers have data centers in the same metro. Provider boundaries and geographic proximity are not the same constraint.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

5/ The thing that doesn't matter: provider boundaries. Near Cloudflare Workers (internet) vs Vercel on AWS (internal network), same region: node-postgres: 31ms vs 32ms Postgres.js: 38ms vs 36ms In some configurations, crossing the internet was faster.

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

4/ The thing that actually matters: geographic distance. Same Cloudflare infrastructure, same database, different regions: Far (San Jose → Virginia): 742ms Near (Ashburn → Virginia): 31ms That's 23x. Distance is real.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

3/ I was working on a Cloudflare Workers deployment with Postgres on AWS. No managed Postgres on Cloudflare — cross-provider was the only option. So I benchmarked it: 4 Postgres drivers × 3 connection strategies × 3 deployment targets, 25 iterations each.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

2/ Conventional wisdom: your database and application need to be on the same cloud provider. Cross-provider means crossing the internet, and crossing the internet means slow. It's the kind of thing that drives platform choices.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/03/2026

1/ Some constraints are real. Some are assumptions that sound plausible and never get tested. It's worth knowing which is which before they shape your decisions. I had one recently. 🧵

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

6. I wrote the full walkthrough with runnable code examples and a pattern for injecting barriers into our tests without touching production code. If you've ever worried about sneaky race conditions in your code, give it a read. www.lirbank.com/harnessing-p...

lirbank.com

Harnessing Postgres race conditions

Synchronization barriers let you test for race conditions with confidence.

010

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

5b Lock present - test passes. Lock removed - test fails. That's proof.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

5a. Synchronization barriers let us test for this. A barrier is a coordination point - each task runs until it hits the barrier, then waits. When the last task arrives, all are released at once. We get the exact race condition interleaving we need for our tests, manufactured on demand.

120

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

4. What we actually need is a write lock. The second transaction blocks until the first one commits, then reads the updated value. Race condition gone. But now we have a new problem - how do we prove the lock is actually doing its job?

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

3. Wrapping it in a transaction doesn't help. Postgres's default isolation level is read committed, which guarantees each statement sees only committed data - that's a read guarantee, not a write guarantee. Both transactions can still read the stale value before either writes.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

2. Here's what that looks like. Two $50 credits hit an account with $100 at the same time. Both operations read the balance as 100. Both write 150. Final balance: $150 instead of $200. One credit vanished. No error. No rollback. Nothing in the logs.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 14/02/2026

Good test coverage gives us confidence and prevents regressions. But testing for race conditions is hard. Even when tests run concurrently, the timing almost never lines up to trigger the bug. The test passes whether our code handles concurrency correctly or not.

120

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 18/01/2026

Neon Testing v2.4.0 is out! 🎉 A Vitest utility for integration tests with Neon Postgres, now with: - Multi-role support for testing row-level security (RLS) - Multi-database project support github.com/starmode-bas... Big thanks to francesco-carrella for the contribution!

github.com

Release v2.4.0 · starmode-base/neon-testing

What's Changed Role and database selection by @francesco-carrella in #10 New Contributors @francesco-carrella made their first contribution in #10 Full Changelog: v2.3.1...v2.4.0

010

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 23/12/2025

I knew I've been pretty productive this year, but yeah, this is more than I expected... while the stats are kind of exciting, it may be time for a day off... 305 Cursor days this year so far

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 16/12/2025

I'm using the tab completion in Cursor so much they are sending me a Cursor tab key! 😅

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 29/11/2025

...when test runs crash, stale branches can linger. The new 10-minute TTL safety net ensures automatic cleanup. Profit! 📦 www.npmjs.com/package/neon... 🔖 github.com/starmode-bas...

npmjs.com

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 29/11/2025

🎉 Black Friday special: 100% off Neon Testing - grab your copy today! Just released v2.3.0 with support for Neon's expiring branches. Neon Testing tears down branches immediately after tests complete. But...

npmjs.com

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 09/09/2025

🚀 My guest post for the Neon blog just went live! Want to make Postgres integration testing dead simple? Read on: neon.com/blog/neon-te... Big thanks to @andrelandgraf.com, Carlota Soto and Neon for the support!

neon.com

Neon Testing: a Vitest Library for Your Integration Tests - Neon

Try Neon Testing, an open-source utility for Vitest that turns Neon branches into disposable test environments.

021

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 25/08/2025

Just release neon-testing v1.1.0 with better support for WebSocket drivers, retries with exponential backoff, and more. A @vitest.dev utility for seamless integration tests with Neon Postgres www.npmjs.com/package/neon... github.com/starmode-bas...

npmjs.com

neon-testing

A Vitest utility for seamless integration tests with Neon Postgres. Latest version: 1.1.0, last published: 9 minutes ago. Start using neon-testing in your project by running `npm i neon-testing`. Ther...

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/02/2025

@vercel.com my dashboard looks like this, but www.vercel-status.com say all is dandy

010

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 22/01/2025

Just started working magically! 🤘

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 22/01/2025

Hey @leerob.com is Bun 1.2 support something that needs to be done on the Vercel side?

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 07/01/2025

@leerob.com I'd love to see @tannerlinsley.com's TanStack Start in the Vercel Frameworks. What can we in the community do to promote and support that to happen? 🙏

131

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 03/01/2025

Right now I am using Ably to send notifications from step run functions to the client, so it can display progress. ably.com Curious to try Server-sent events at some point too. I wonder how well it will work with Vercel edge functions though. developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...

developer.mozilla.org

Server-sent events - Web APIs | MDN

Traditionally, a web page has to send a request to the server to receive new data; that is, the page requests data from the server. With server-sent events, it's possible for a server to send new data...

010

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 01/01/2025

@tannerlinsley.com you probably don't plan to, but plz don't integrate ESLint into TanStack Start. It's a great _standalone_ tool that I really like and use in every project.

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 18/12/2024

Ref docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/lates... vercel.com/docs/edge-ne... neon.tech/docs/introdu...

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 18/12/2024

So you know, these mean the same AWS data center: Vercel: Washington, D.C., USA (East) – iad1 Neon: AWS US East (N. Virginia) AWS Code: us-east-1 AWS Name: US East (N. Virginia) I find it especially helpful that @vercel.com name it "Washington, D.C" since AWS call it "N. Virginia".

110

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 17/12/2024

I mean, so good! Classic, enduring, timeless.

100

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 13/12/2024

For websites and e-commerce it is critical to display content with no delay. For apps it is important that the app is fast. For example, code splitting (and network calls) are actually a bad thing here. Loading JS when the user open a panel is making UX worse.

000

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 13/12/2024

Let's make it easier to pick a meta framework for your next project: - Next.js is for websites (great for e-commerce, CMS) - TanStack Start is for webapps (great for Figma, Excalidraw style apps) @t3.gg @tannerlinsley.com @leerob.com agree?

120

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 30/11/2024

Just added a fallback PNG browser icon for older browsers. One example of an older browser is the latest Safari for macOS. Older browsers (AKA Safari) keep their icon cache forever so if you ever visited this site, you will still not see any icon. Just so you know. 🙃 www.lirbank.com

lirbank.com

Mikael Lirbank

I help companies build better software, focusing on AI and web technologies.

010

Mikael Lirbank @lirbank.com · 25/11/2024

It is fun to write SVG markup. Just made a new browser icon for www.airlab.io

airlab.io

Airlab

Airlab LLC

000