// Systems Engineering Journal
Vol. 01 — 2026

Deep dives into
protocols, systems,
and AI tooling.

Field notes from storage internals to AI dev tooling — wire protocols, write paths, and the methodologies that keep production code honest.

5 Articles Interactive Visualizations Storage · Protocols · AI Tooling · Testing
Latest Articles
Issue 002 · Mar 2026
SMB & NFS — End-to-End Write Flow

An interactive protocol explorer tracing every step of a write operation — from userspace syscall through kernel redirectors, authentication, cache management, distributed replication, and the critical ACK decision point. Compare SMB and NFS side by side.

25 min deep dive
Issue 001 · Feb 2026
Enterprise Storage Testing with Strategic Heat Maps

A data-driven approach to prioritizing test coverage across 13 data properties and 16 test types. Interactive D3 heatmap reveals where testing effort yields the highest return.

12 min read
Issue 003 · Mar 2026
Playwright Technical Analysis

A comprehensive deep-dive into modern browser automation — architecture, AI/MCP integration, locator systems, and how Playwright stacks up against Selenium and Cypress.

15 min read
Issue 004 · Apr 2026
Your AI Assistant Doesn’t Understand Your Codebase. Here’s the Fix That Lives Inside Your Repo.

Most AI-for-code tools improve context by sending more of your code to a third party. Draft’s graph engine does the opposite — a local, deterministic, version-controlled knowledge graph. No MCP, no SaaS, no embeddings, no leaked code.

6 min read
Issue 005 · Apr 2026
I Replaced Kiro With a Free Plugin — Here’s What Happened

Amazon’s Kiro and Draft both solve the same problem: AI coding without structure is chaos. The honest comparison — bug hunting, ACID enforcement, three-stage review, architecture discovery, IDE portability, and a $0 price tag.

7 min read
Issue 007 · May 2026
What Will This Change Break? A Real Blast-Radius Walkthrough

Before /draft:implement writes a line, Draft’s graph engine answers the question your AI assistant cannot: 47 downstream files, 12 tests, 3 config templates — and a refactor plan reshaped before any code lands. Three loops, one shared graph.

7 min read
Issue 006 · May 2026
Decomposing a Payment Gateway Integration: A Real /draft:decompose Walkthrough

A real run on a 14-file track. Eight modules, a circular dependency caught and broken before any code was written, and an LLD with contracts for the two high-complexity modules. Decomposition isn’t a planner — it’s an architectural guardrail.

8 min read
Issue 008 · May 2026
The MCP Tool Tax: How Four Coding Agents Solve the Same Problem Four Ways

Loading 200 MCP tool schemas upfront costs 50–140K tokens, breaks selection accuracy past ~30–50 tools, and slams into a 128-tool API ceiling on two of the four major providers. A comparative read on Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, and GitHub Copilot as of May 2026.

10 min read