Hot Takes

The opinionated pieces. Strong views on tools and trends, loosely held where the evidence demands it.




A Victorian cat gallery curator wearing a monocle and velvet coat, standing in a grand portrait hall filled with framed paintings of different cats
21 min read

Ode to cats

Every blog post on this site has a Victorian cat hero image generated by AI. Here's every single one, in full colour, from the earliest originals to today.

Jono Alford
Sne Tripathi
Hrithik Prasad
Aayush Bharti
Jono, Sne, Hrithik, and Aayush
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A Victorian cat shopkeeper behind an ornate counter with a headless mannequin in the background
17 min read

Shopify headless: should you actually build one?

Headless Shopify sounds great until you see the bill. We break down when it makes sense, when it doesn't, and what it actually costs across vanilla Shopify, custom themes, Hydrogen, and Next.js builds.

Jono Alford
Sne Tripathi
Jono and Sne
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A Victorian couple of cats in Sunday best clothes posing for a portrait
11 min read

Clean your GROQ

How to structure GROQ queries that stay readable as your Sanity project grows. Fragment-based patterns with code examples.

Jono Alford
Hrithik Prasad
Sne Tripathi
Jono, Hrithik, and Sne
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A Victorian-era cat wearing a Gojo Satoru blindfold with one glowing blue eye peeking out, surrounded by blue cursed energy flames
17 min read

Why we built Satoru, our background coding agent

How we built Satoru, a sandboxed background coding agent powered by Cloudflare Durable Objects and Modal to handle retainer backlogs across client codebases.

Jono Alford
Hrithik Prasad
Aayush Bharti
Sne Tripathi
Jono, Hrithik, Aayush, and Sne
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A distinguished Victorian cat in a military coat surveying the state of content management
12 min read

The state of headless CMS

By the time you read this, another CMS will have pivoted to AI, announced a beta, and promised to 'reimagine how teams create.' Keep up.

Sne Tripathi
Jenil Thummar
Jono Alford
Sne, Jenil, and Jono
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Figma in 2025: hot takes
8 min read

Figma in 2025: hot takes

Figma has evolved into the go-to design tool in 2025. While it stands out, there is still room for improvement in support for designers.

Jenil Thummar
Sne Tripathi
Jono Alford
Jenil, Sne, and Jono
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Thinking of jumping ship from WordPress?
8 min read

Thinking of jumping ship from WordPress?

Ahoy, me hearties! Looking to jump ship from WordPress while the going's not so good, worried what the uncharted waters look like? Let's set your sail straight.

Jono Alford
Sne Tripathi
Hrithik Prasad
Jono, Sne, and Hrithik
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Our initial thoughts on Sanity Create
5 min read

Our initial thoughts on Sanity Create

Getting our hands on Sanity Create, and using it to actually structure the very article you're reading right in front of you.

Jono Alford
Sne Tripathi
Jono and Sne
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Actually using Figma dev mode - is it any good?
4 min read

Actually using Figma dev mode - is it any good?

Ever get frustrated with Zeplin, Figma Inspect, or other dev/design tools? Dive into our 24-hour deep-dive full of hard-hitting questions and raw insights.

Jono Alford
Sne Tripathi
Jono and Sne
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