iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

Thanks to all of you who purchased "Another Benchmark Saturated!" shirt or mug 🙏🏽 I've donated the proceeds ($250, employer matched to $500) to www.birdrescue.org/donate to save pelicans and other waterbirds. Keep purchasing and I'll keep donating […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026

If you're building with Model Context Protocol, join us on Sept 9th for MCP Live! A free 5-hour livestream featuring MCP core maintainers, engineers of popular MCP servers, and devs building the MCP ecosystem. Register: developer.microsoft.com/en-us/react…

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2026

We played a bunch with WebMCP in OH today, via: 1) the DevTools Web MCP inspector 2) AI assistant in Dev Tools in Chrome 3) GitHub Copilot with the Chrome Dev Tools MCP server Who's using WebMCP out there, and how are you using it?

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

Wrote a new blog post: "Building safe servers for your PostgreSQL database" blog.pamelafox.org/2026/08/building… That's based on my @posetteconf talk, recording here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_JPHuXgDyQ

Spectrum of ways to build PostgreSQL MCP servers

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

Open Source AI Gap Map: The most solid open-source options are in the orchestration & agents category, like the many Python agent frameworks, but we need more OSS options around evals, UI, OTel, and more. www.aipotluck.org/map

Screenshot of Open Source AI Gap Map website

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026

Building with MCP in the Bay Area? Join us Sept 14 at GitHub HQ for MCP Community Connect SF! Hear from our fantastic speakers: • Drew Breunig (CMPND) • Jiquan Ngiam (MintMCP) • Sofía Sánchez-Zárate (CopilotKit) • Prathmesh Patel (MCPJam) • Harald Kirschner […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/07/2026

The new MCP spec is officially out! blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/… To celebrate, my colleague and I are hosting a 5-hour livestream on September 9 on the VS Code YouTube channel. Join MCP maintainers and builders for talks about MCP […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

"Do automated evals work?" parlance-labs.com/blog/posts/auto-e… Hamel and Antaripa use multiple LLM-powered tools to identify failures in app traces and compare results to labels from a domain expert. LLMs caught some errors that humans missed, but […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2026

Next week, my colleague and I are running a livestream series showing how to ground AI apps in real data: "Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python" We'll cover: * Foundry IQ (Azure AI Search): create multi-source knowledge bases with hybrid search and re-ranking * […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python banner

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/07/2026

As a life-long Photoshop addict, I love that the web is now powerful enough for basic photo editing operations. I've been using photopea.com, as it's free and mimics the Photoshop UI and shortcuts.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

My colleague and I are running a new livestream series: Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python We'll cover: * Foundry IQ (Azure AI Search): create multi-source knowledge bases with hybrid search and re-ranking * Fabric IQ: query ontologies from MS Fabric * Work IQ […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

I just merged an update to the Azure AI Search + OpenAI RAG project that changes the default chat model to gpt-5.4-mini with reasoning_effort=low and top=5. github.com/Azure-Samples/azure-sear… That combo wasn't best on every […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/06/2026

I ran into this "bee-way" while walking on the sidewalk with my kiddos yesterday. Now I'm dreading the "birds and the bees" talk even more! "Sometimes, when 5 males all love the same female, at the exact same time,..."

5 male bumblebees on one female bumblebee

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/05/2026

Great post from @nzakas about writing agent hooks in VS Code: humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/05/vsco… For example, you can use a hook each time GitHub Copilot uses its edit tool, check which files were edited by that tool, then auto-run a validation step on those files.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/05/2026

"HyDRA: Hybrid Dynamic Routing Architecture for Heterogeneous LLM Pools" arxiv.org/abs/2605.17106 This research paper explains the system used for the new "Auto" mode of GitHub Copilot in VS Code.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/05/2026

GitHub is working on giving maintainers more ways to manage low-quality PRs, starting with a PR cap for outside contributors and an allowlist for trusted ones. It's coming soon, here's a video preview:

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 22/05/2026

My hoodie arrived, so it's official! After a re-org a few months ago, I now work under both MS *and* GitHub. I've always been a big user of GitHub, so it's been really helpful the last few months to have a direct connection to the product team. Now when I […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

I won snake earrings from the PyLadies auction at #PyconUS this year! And my employer matched donation, so that's $1400 for the PyLadies foundation. $60,000 was raised total on the night. Good bidding, everyone!

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/05/2026

I’m so glad I made it for the first three hours of the #PyconUS sprints! We got a bunch of new contributors to the Pallets projects, including several devs completely new to OSS. Everyone’s being really helpful and welcoming.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/05/2026

My colleague @madebygps gave a great talk at #PyconUS EduSummit: "Big Lessons from Small Models: Teaching Python AI with SLMs" madebygps.github.io/pycon26/talk1/i… Tips: 1. include SLM setup code in all code samples 2. figure out which SLMs […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Slide with Ollama code for each language

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2026

We're running an improv open space at 2pm at #PyconUS, in the lobby. Come play!!

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2026

😸 Loved this #PyconUS lightning talk: "Find Better 🐱 Cat Emojis with your text!" slides.takanory.net/slides/20260517… Takanori made emojis searchable by generating descriptions with Ollama+gemma4, then embedded with SentenceTransformers + multilingual-e5-base, and searched with ANN.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2026

There's a new GitHub Copilot desktop app, a UI wrapper over the CLI that lets you create agent sessions across multiple repos. I like it so far, especially for chores that agents can predictably do. github.com/github/app (It's preview, so availability is based on Copilot plan)

Screenshots of porting to httpx in Copilot app

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

Just presented at EduSummit #PyConUS "Your slides, but faster: Building an AI-powered presentation workflow" pamelafox.github.io/ai-powered-pres… Tips: Use RevealJS, ASCII mockups, audits, agent skills

Slide about choosing an LLM-friendly format

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

Our Python advocacy team has landed at PyCon US! Can I get a P-Y-C?!? Here's where you can find us: devblogs.microsoft.com/python/pycon… If you're here, come say hi at the booth. 👋🏻

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

Learnt a bunch of new ways to query SQL from @pythonbynight's tutorial today: aiosql → sqlspec → dbxs → advanced-alchemy All are valid options, depending on what you and your organization needs from your SQL access layer!

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

And come to my talk tomorrow at #PyconUS EduSummit to learn more of my tricks for collaborating building RevealJS slide decks with LLMs: us.pycon.org/2026/events/education-…

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

The very first Q I got during today's #PyConUS MCP tutorial: "what software are you using for your slides?" RevealJS! revealjs.com You can view the source yourself - HTML, CSS, SVG: pamelafox.github.io/pycon2026-mcp-t…

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/05/2026

I made this collage of alternate MCP meanings from #PyConUS attendees at today's MCP tutorial. My favs: "McDonalds Changed Prices!" "My Computer's Pissed" "Muy Caliente, Por favor"

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/05/2026

Just delivered "Build your first MCP server in Python" tutorial at #PyConUS! Packed house, great Qs. Slides: pamelafox.github.io/pycon2026-mcp-t… Code: github.com/pamelafox/pycon2026-mcp-…

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/05/2026

Google Web Fonts has a font designed by the Braille institute specifically for legibility by folks with low vision: "Atkinson Hyperlegible" fonts.google.com/specimen/Atkinson+…

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/05/2026

Got a new Mac! M5 Max with 64GB RAM Anyone using local SLMs with coding agents on this hardware? Wondering how far I can go with local models.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/05/2026

We're running an open space on improv at PyCon US this year! us.pycon.org/2026/events/open-space… Come have fun playing improv games for an hour. We're thinking Sunday sometime.

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/05/2026

Everyone should grow grapes just so you can truly understand the meaning of the word "creepy". Grapevines will try to curl onto you as soon as they sense your skin nearby. Here are some native California grapes (californica, girdiana) that I'm training to climb up a trellis:

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2026

We got a Copilot stuffie, and now my kid is walking "little baby Copilot" around in a stroller, saying "shh Copilot is crying, pobrecito Copilot." 😆

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/04/2026

TIL at my first grader's open house: she drew a book about her fav Octocat stickers. "i like this sticker because it looks like my mom at work. she works for the octocat company in san francisco." petition to rename GitHub to "The Octocat Company"?

drawing of mom octocat and handwritten message

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 23/04/2026

I find it super helpful to ask a coding agent to review slides for accuracy-- especially when I have em open in same folder as demo code. Related: I'm starting to move presentation-related agent skills into github.com/pamelafox/presentation-s… I […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 21/04/2026

Just recorded my talk for @posetteconf 2026: "An MCP for your Postgres DB" Tune in on June 16th-18th to watch my talk and many more PostgreSQL talks! posetteconf.com/2026

Pamela in front of computer screens with MCP talk

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/04/2026

TIL: FastMCP lets you specify a timeout on each MCP tool, making it easy to cancel expensive calls if they take too much time. @mcp.tool(timeout=30.0) async def execute_readonly_sql(sql: str): ... gofastmcp.com/servers/tools#timeouts

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/04/2026

Got a bunch of spam comments on a commit this morning. Time to shut that down! (GitHub > Settings > General > Commits)

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/04/2026

Finally trying out form-mode elicitations in FastMCP today - great way to get a confirmation from a user before taking an action. FastMCP docs: gofastmcp.com/servers/elicitation MCP spec: modelcontextprotocol.io/specificati…

Using elicitations in an MCP server in VS Code

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/04/2026

Tip: if you use a package from GitHub heavily, you can subscribe to find out about new releases (but not get overwhelmed by other notifs). I just did that for FastMCP since their releases are always chock full of new features. (Also I love their punny release titles)

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/04/2026

I got this amazing air tag with my initials from the PyAI conference organizers! Not even sure they realized that the snake looks like an S, and PSF is both "Pamela Susan Fox" AND "Python Software Foundation". It's perfect. Now, what do I tag?? This is my first air tag.

Photo of air tag with PSF, where S is a snake

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/04/2026

I built an agent skill that roasts me based on my work week (using GitHub, X, and WorkIQ MCP servers), and it cracks me up so much. 😆 "I've never seen someone so aggressively productive and yet so fundamentally unhinged at the same time." Install from […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/04/2026

Yay, you can now @ Copilot on a Dependabot PR to fix issues from package upgrades. I maintain tons of repos and spend way too much time triaging Dependabot PRs, now I can just delegate to the Copilot coding agent.

A Dependabot PR where Copilot gets asked to fix it, and DOES fix it

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 06/04/2026

This display of Python version status on www.python.org/downloads is nice! (Also good reminder to make sure all my GitHub actions workflows include 3.14 in the version matrix)

Display of versions as a graph with status

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 03/04/2026

FastMCP now has built-in support for OpenTelemetry (using the standardized semantic conventions): gofastmcp.com/servers/telemetry @madebygps verified it works in our sample that exports to either Aspire, Azure App Insights, or Pydantic Logfire […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 31/03/2026

I am so done with LLMs adding inline imports to my Python code. Who does that?? Adding this prompt to my global instructions to hopefully dissuade inline imports forever.

Screenshot of my global instructions prompt

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 31/03/2026

mcp-server-diff: A GitHub action for detecting differences in MCP servers between versions. github.com/SamMorrowDrums/mcp-serve… Good way to ensure all agent-facing MCP server changes are intentional!

Output from mcp-server-diff of tool changes

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Pamela Fox @pamelafox.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 31/03/2026

FastMCP v3 has 5 ways of building MCP apps: 1. Prefab apps (common UI components) 2. FastMCPApp (UI composability) 3. Generative UI (LLM-generated) 4. Custom HTML (DIY HTML/CSS/JS) 5. App providers gofastmcp.com/apps/overview

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