Raza Basit’s BlogDistributed systems, backend infrastructure, and engineering post-mortems by Raza Basit.https://raza.build/Dependency Pinning in JavaScript — Why It Matters More Than You Thinkhttps://raza.build/blog/dependency-pinning-javascript/https://raza.build/blog/dependency-pinning-javascript/Loose version ranges feel convenient until a patch update ships malware or breaks your build on a fresh clone. Here's the honest tradeoff between pinning and automatic updates, and where to land.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT8 min readGit + Shell: Run Tooling Only on Files You Actually Changedhttps://raza.build/blog/git-shell-run-tooling-changed-files/https://raza.build/blog/git-shell-run-tooling-changed-files/A simple but powerful shell pattern — pipe git log into your tooling so you're only formatting, linting, testing, and scanning the files that changed, not your entire codebase.Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT6 min readThe Hidden Cost of Overfetching — How a NAT Gateway Spike Led Us Down a Rabbit Holehttps://raza.build/blog/hidden-cost-of-overfetching/https://raza.build/blog/hidden-cost-of-overfetching/A NAT gateway inbound traffic spike of 100MB/s with no deployment changes. The culprit wasn't the network — it was two overfetching bugs hiding in a Kafka consumer and a MongoDB query, exposed by moving to new infrastructure.Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT10 min readOptimizing Rust Log Parsershttps://raza.build/blog/optimizing-rust/https://raza.build/blog/optimizing-rust/A deep dive into zero-copy parsing techniques and SIMD optimizations for high-throughput logging infrastructure.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT8 min readBuild a Rate Limiter in Go — Part 2: Scaling with Map Shardinghttps://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-map-sharding/https://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-map-sharding/In Part 1 we built a correct sliding window rate limiter. In Part 2 we fix its biggest weakness — a global lock that blocks real traffic during cleanup at scale.Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT7 min readBuild a Rate Limiter in Go — Part 4: Redis-Backed Distributed Rate Limitinghttps://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-redis-distributed/https://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-redis-distributed/In-memory rate limiters break the moment you scale horizontally. In Part 4 we move state into Redis, introduce a Store interface for flexibility, and implement both sliding window and token bucket algorithms that work correctly across multiple instances.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT10 min readBuild a Rate Limiter in Go — Part 1: The Sliding Windowhttps://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-sliding-window/https://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-sliding-window/A practical guide to building a correct, concurrent, memory-safe rate limiter in Go using the sliding window algorithm — with honest tradeoffs included.Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT6 min readBuild a Rate Limiter in Go — Part 3: The Token Bucket Algorithmhttps://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-token-bucket/https://raza.build/blog/rate-limiter-go-token-bucket/The sliding window isn't the only way to rate limit. In Part 3 we implement the token bucket algorithm — a different mental model that handles bursts more gracefully.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT7 min readBuilding a Safe SQLite MCP Server in Go — Why Agents Shouldn't Have Raw Database Accesshttps://raza.build/blog/safe-sqlite-mcp-server-go/https://raza.build/blog/safe-sqlite-mcp-server-go/Exposing raw SQL or shell access to AI agents is an operational disaster waiting to happen. Here is how to build a single-binary Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in Go with immutable database guardrails.Sun, 20 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT11 min read