Vol. IMMXXVIAI Software Engineer · Badland

Cole Tebou’sAlmanac

& Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 2026

Being the Semiquincentennial of American Independence, and the Second after Bissextile, or Leap-Year.
Calculated for the Meridian of Washington — Lat. 38° 54′ N · Long. 77° 03′ W

I build AI systems that have to work in the real world. At Badland that means the tooling for running a fleet of coding agents, and the AI products I build and run myself. Before code, I was a structural engineer delivering heavy-civil projects.

Read the works Write to me

Today, Washington: Tuesday 27 October 2026Day 300 of 365
Sun: Rises 7:30 amSets 6:13 pm10 h 43 m
Moon: Waning gibbous97% lit
Night: 6:40 pm – 7:03 amcivil twilight to civil twilight
In the Church: Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary TimeGreen · Ordinary Time

Printed edition · 10:22 am EDT, 27 October

§ I Works & Days

Evidence over adjectives.

Systems I have designed, shipped, and kept running — the tooling for a fleet of coding agents, independent products, and open source — each told by its constraint, the system, and what changed after it shipped.

Plate IDrover
No. 1The control plane · open source
Drover
One place to see which agent is waiting on you, on any machine, and to answer it from wherever you are.
Node 24 · Swift · MCP · tmux
No. 2The shared memory · open source
badland-brain
What one agent learns, the others can find, with its source attached.
TypeScript · MCP · SQLite FTS5 + sqlite-vec · MongoDB
No. 3The environment · open source
dx
Every machine in the fleet starts from the same environment, so an agent's tools and habits travel with it.
zsh · tmux · Claude Code · Codex
No. 4The login screen · open source
porchlight
Logging in to any machine tells you what needs attention before you type a command.
Python 3.9+ · zero dependencies
Plate IIBadland AI Chat
No. 5Multi-model product · operated in production
Badland AI Chat
A production product that lets the interaction choose the model workflow, not the other way around.
React 19 · Express 5 · MongoDB · tRPC · AI SDK
Plate IIIBadland Agent Platform
No. 6Personal agents · native messaging
Badland Agent Platform
Moved the agent from a separate app into the conversation people already have, then hardened the transport behind it.
imsg · OpenClaw · TypeScript · Tenant isolation · SMS
Plate IVTide
No. 7Native code editor · iPad + iPhone
Tide
Tests how much of a desktop development workbench can feel native on a tablet before remote machines and agents join it.
Swift · SwiftUI · TextKit · SwiftTerm
No. 8ooxml · OpenClaw · Clawpatch · imsg
Upstream
Contributions that make agent tooling and document viewers dependable for other people.
TypeScript · Reliability · Office Open XML

Table I

The whole of the works

Key to the signs: Open source; Independent platforms; Products & experiments; Engineering systems

Open source

Independent platforms

Products & experiments

Engineering systems

ExcitoEarthquake ground-motion spectral matching: a modernized RSPMatch behind a Python command line, with a GUI and plots.Prototype

§ II Stations in Operation

Live, right now.

Every station below is a real, operated surface — designed, built, deployed, and kept running. Each opens the live site in a new tab.

Station Isunnydayz.co

Sunny Dayz

A commerce storefront with its own operations dashboard: product import, margin rules, generated ad copy and photography, and Stripe checkout.

Next.js · Stripe · MongoDB · Live

Open the live site

Station IItallgrass.social

Tallgrass

Discover, identify and share the natural world, on the web, through an API, and in an iOS app. Open signup on the web and on TestFlight.

TypeScript · Bun · Swift · Open signup on the web and TestFlight

Open the live site

Each station also has an entry inthe works, with its status and the stack behind it.

§ III The Machinery

The systems behind the stations.

Three mechanisms I run in production, replayed as deterministic schematics: one iMessage number serving isolated tenants, a fleet of machines sharing one memory, and parallel agents shipping without collisions.

SCHEMATIC / REAL MECHANISMS DETERMINISTIC REPLAY

Selected mechanism

One number, every tenant.

Group chats and DMs arrive on one iMessage identity. Every message must resolve to exactly one isolated tenant — or be rejected.

01inbound · dm · sender paired
02broker · route → tenant-a · cas ok
03inbound · group "demo crew" · claimed
04broker · route → tenant-b · owner verified
05inbound · sender unknown · no route
06broker · ambiguous → REJECT · fail closed

§ IV The Log

Software judgment, built in the field.

The through-line is delivery under constraint: first with concrete, crews, cost, and schedule; now with models, services, permissions, and state. Ruled like a logbook, most recent entry first.

PeriodStationPositionRemarks

012024 – present

Badland

Remote

Founder & Independent Developer

Designing, shipping and operating multi-model software, personal agents, native messaging infrastructure, the tooling for fleets of coding agents, and focused products.

Build the open tooling for running fleets of coding agents: Drover, badland-brain, dx and porchlight.
Operate a multi-tenant chat product spanning the OpenAI, xAI, Google and Anthropic model families, with voice, image, web, file, council and briefing workflows.
Built a personal-agent platform delivered through native iMessage, SMS and Telegram, with isolated tenants, persistent context, reminders, media, search and artifact creation.
Replaced the retired webhook transport with a native imsg broker that fails closed on ambiguous routes, isolates attachments and journals delivery for bounded replay.

Carried forward

B.S. Civil Engineering, Clemson University, 2017 – 2021

EIT · LEED Green Associate · Eagle Scout

AI software engineer since 2024. Before that, nearly three and a half years as a project engineer on heavy civil and industrial work, after a B.S. in civil engineering.

Table III The working set

Agent systems

Models become useful when identity, tools, memory, and recovery are designed together.

Multi-model routing · Tool boundaries · Native imsg · Evaluation · Observability

Product engineering

Own the user-facing path from first interaction through streamed work and durable state.

TypeScript · React · Node / Bun · Python · Rust · Swift

III

Production systems

Deployment is the start of the feedback loop, not the finish line.

Cloudflare · AWS · Containers · CI/CD · Tracing

Engineering domain

Physical constraints and reviewable calculations still shape the software I build.

ACI 318 · FEA · Seismic analysis · P6 · EVM

§ V The Sky over Washington

Calculated for tonight.

An ephemeris for Tuesday 27 October 2026, worked out in your browser from the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets — and the sky itself, drawn as it stands above the city.

The Sun
Rises	7:30 am
On the meridian	12:52 pm
Sets	6:13 pm
Length of day	10 h 43 m

Twilight
Sun’s depression	Dawn	Dusk
Civil · 6°	7:02 am	6:40 pm
Nautical · 12°	6:31 am	7:12 pm
Astronomical · 18°	6:00 am	7:43 pm

Night, by law · 14 CFR §1.1

6:40 pm — 7:03 am

From the end of evening civil twilight to the beginning of morning civil twilight: the hours a pilot logs as night.

The Moon

Waning gibbous

97% lit · age 16.9 days· in Aries

Rises 6:57 pm · sets 9:21 am

Last quarterSun 1 Nov · 3:28 pm
New moonMon 9 Nov · 2:02 am
First quarterTue 17 Nov · 6:48 am
Full moonTue 24 Nov · 9:54 am

Planets tonight

Mars before dawn, best near 7:00 am — 65° up in the southeast, in Cancer
Jupiter before dawn, best near 7:00 am — 59° up in the southeast, in Leo
Saturn all night, best near 11:20 pm — 52° up in the south, in Cetus

The live chart is drawn by JavaScript. Tonight’s Moon and planets are listed beside it.

TimeNow

stars to fifth magnitudeplanetsthe eclipticEast is on the left: hold the chart overhead, facing south.

Calculating the sky for Washington…

Notes from the observatory

The names on the Moon

The lunar nomenclature still in use — Mare Tranquillitatis, Copernicus, Tycho — comes from the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Riccioli’s Almagestum Novum of 1651.

The calendar on your wall

The Gregorian calendar of 1582 — the one this almanac counts its days by — was built on Aloysius Lilius’s proposal and refined by the Jesuit astronomer Christopher Clavius.

The expanding universe

Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest, proposed in 1927 that the universe is expanding, and in 1931 that it began from a “primeval atom”.

The night, by law

For pilots, 14 CFR §1.1 defines night as the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, “as published in the Air Almanac”. The ephemeris above computes exactly that.

§ VI The Year

Natural & liturgical.

2026 as a wheel: the Church’s seasons in their colors, the full moons by their old names, equinoxes and solstices, eclipses, the great meteor showers — and what to look for outside Washington each month.

liturgical seasonspatrons’ daysfull moonsequinox & solsticemeteorseclipses

Today in the Church

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

Season: 30th Week in Ordinary Time
Color of the day: Green
Cycles: Sunday cycle A · Weekday cycle II
Optional memorial

The calendar of the dioceses of the United States, as kept in the Archdiocese of Washington. This almanac wears the color of the season: green in Ordinary Time, violet in Advent and Lent, white and gold at Christmas and Easter, rose on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays.

Patrons of this almanac

Apr 4St. Isidore of Seville — the encyclopedist; often proposed as patron of the internet
Apr 23St. George — patron of Scouting
May 1St. Joseph the Worker — patron of workers and craftsmen
Jul 3St. Thomas the Apostle — patron of architects and builders
Jul 14St. Kateri Tekakwitha — patroness of ecology and the environment
Sep 18St. Joseph of Cupertino — patron of aviators and astronauts
Oct 4St. Francis of Assisi — patron of ecology
Nov 15St. Albert the Great — patron of natural scientists
Dec 10Our Lady of Loreto — patroness of aviators and air travelers

Table II The months of 2026
Month	Full moon	In the sky	In the Church	Outside Washington
January	3 Wolf Moon	3 Quadrantids	1 Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God4 The Epiphany of the Lord	Bald eagles tend nests along the Potomac; winter birds crowd the feeders.
February	1 Snow Moon	—	18 Ash Wednesday	Woodcock begin their dusk sky-dances over wet fields; maple sap runs.
March	3 Worm Moon	3 Total lunar eclipse — visible from Washington20 March equinox	19 Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary25 The Annunciation of the Lord29 Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord	Spring peepers chorus from the ditches; skunk cabbage pushes through the mud.
April	1 Pink Moon	22 Lyrids	4 St. Isidore of Seville5 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord23 St. George	Cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin; Virginia bluebells carpet the river bottoms.
May	1 Flower Moon31 Blue Moon	6 Eta Aquariids	1 St. Joseph the Worker17 The Ascension of the Lord24 Pentecost Sunday31 The Most Holy Trinity	Warbler migration peaks in the new leaves; the first fireflies appear by month’s end.
June	29 Strawberry Moon	21 June solstice	7 The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)12 The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus24 The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist29 Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles	Fireflies over every lawn; mountain laurel blooms along the Blue Ridge.
July	29 Buck Moon	—	3 St. Thomas the Apostle14 St. Kateri Tekakwitha	Annual cicadas drone through the heat; storms build by mid-afternoon.
August	28 Sturgeon Moon	12 Partial solar eclipse — 4% of the Sun covered from Washington12 Perseids28 Partial lunar eclipse — visible from Washington	15 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary	Goldenrod and ironweed in the meadows; hummingbirds fatten for migration.
September	26 Harvest Moon	22 September equinox	18 St. Joseph of Cupertino	Broad-winged hawks stream down the ridges; monarchs drift south.
October	26 Hunter’s Moon	21 Orionids	4 St. Francis of Assisi	Peak color in the Blue Ridge; the first frosts touch the valleys.
November	24 Beaver Moon	17 Leonids	1 All Saints15 St. Albert the Great22 Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe	Tundra swans and snow geese return to the Chesapeake; the leaves come down.
December	23 Cold Moon	14 Geminids21 December solstice	8 The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary10 Our Lady of Loreto25 The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)	The longest nights of the year; Orion climbs high in the south by midnight.

§ VII The Author

The unusual part isn’t the stack.

And divers other particulars.

Trained as: a civil engineer (B.S., Clemson University)
Works as: an AI software engineer
Builds: Badland, the tooling for fleets of coding agents, and a line of focused products
Keeps: the Church’s year
Watches: the sky, the weather, and the airspace overhead
Designs with: Nebulatio Studio,the design and build studio behind several of these surfaces

I learned engineering where mistakes become schedule slips, cost overruns, rework, and safety risk — not just failed builds.

Before software, I managed field execution on heavy civil and industrial programs: airport concrete, bridges and roadways, and industrial construction. I learned to read the whole load path — design intent, materials, people, sequence, money, inspection, and the recovery plan when reality disagrees with the drawing.

That background shapes the AI systems I build now. I specialize in agentic systems, multi-model tooling, and the infrastructure that makes frontier models useful outside a demo — authentication, isolation, observability, deployment, and reliability. I build and operate Badland, and the open tooling it runs on: Drover, badland-brain, dx and porchlight.

Away from the keyboard my attention goes up and out: to airspace and weather, to the night sky, to the woods and rivers around Washington. I am an Eagle Scout and a Catholic, and this almanac keeps the Church’s year — its color turns with the season.

My edge is not knowing one framework better than everyone else. It is moving between domain constraints and software architecture while keeping the result understandable to the people who have to trust it.

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Cole Tebou’sAlmanac

Evidence over adjectives.

Drover

badland-brain

dx

porchlight

Badland AI Chat

Badland Agent Platform

Tide

Upstream