<p>In November I had a company meeting back that talked about the concept of an "integrated life".  I had some deeper internal processing than I expected coming out of that meeting that started the wheels churning on this post.  Then last week my mom shared a post from Kate Bowler about celebrating "limited agency".  This is my reflection on those two ideas, how they have merged together in my mind, and how I'm working on incorporating them into my life.</p>
<h2>Come Together</h2>
<p>My still new employer, <a href="https://www.improving.com/">Improving</a>, has a series of meetings every month under the title "Come Together" as a way to share topics as well as build community in ways that aren't normally exposed internally within a company. Past sessions have covered individual countries where we have offices, the concept of playing games to build teams, and even just "pets".</p>
<p>November's topic was tied to men and male health, which I'll be honest, it isn't my favorite. It feels a bit cringe. Not that I want to ignore it or dismiss it, quite the opposite actually. I think men's health is important and often men ignore it and pretend they're invincible. It's just that my first impression was part of the pushback on things like the #metoo movement and the "reverse sexism" talk track.  But I'm still getting to know this new place so I did my best to not jump to conclusions.</p>
<h3>Initial Conversation</h3>
<p>The specific session I'm writing about was on being leaders in a global company, the challenges they face and tools, tips, and techniques to deal with the stress and balance therein.  I'm not entirely sure what about the description caught my attention and made me dial in without multitasking and getting distracted, but I'm glad it happened.  I was still doing some multitasking, but I just can't imagine myself ever sitting there watching some talking heads for an hour without doing anything else. At the beginning of this session, I felt a bit guilty about what I was doing, but as you'll see through my processing and analysis, it turns out I shouldn't have felt that way. I always have plenty of projects going in the garage and I decided one of them could keep me busy while allowing my brain to process the discussion that was happening in the meeting.</p>
<p>The initial parts of the meeting were mildly interesting although in a superficial sense and what you might expect from a company meeting on the topic. They talked about ways to deal with stress and how long they had been doing jobs like this, and that type of thing. The speakers were our CEO and the leaders of some global offices -- all of them are successful men that fit a stereotype I often roll my eyes at (middle-aged successful men running technology companies worth tens and hundreds of millions of dollars). These particular individuals are not cringe, but it's hard for me to listen to them talk about how they manage life stress without feeling that my life is very different from their life. That is probably true, but as the talk went on, it was good to hear what they had to say and see them as more level-headed and relatable people than I gave them credit for.</p>
<h3>Integrated Life</h3>
<p>What caught my attention was when the CEO started talking about the idea of an 'Integrated Life.' That name made me cringe—it sounded like corporate-speak for 'always be available for work.' Given my history with poor leadership, particularly around how development organizations are treated, I was skeptical. My initial take: this was just another way to say 'work overtime without payment' and 'be at leadership's disposal whenever they need you.' However, as I listened to him explain what this concept actually means to him, my cynicism faded. He talks about this topic regularly and is clearly passionate about it—this wasn't just a talk track tailored for this particular audience.</p>
<p>My interpretation of what he calls the integrated life is actually very well aligned to the kind of lifestyle I was after in my job change and something that I believe the pandemic taught us was possible.  The talk track of "work life balance" is tired and beaten down to the point it has become mostly a punching bag for something to refer to when griping about work or looking for a new year's resolution.  A recap I sent a friend afterwards was this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the kids have a thing in the morning then go do it.  If you want to go for a walk with your wife or go shopping for the kids at 11am then do it.  Maybe that works best for you and you’re fine working later so you are still getting your job done.  8-5 workdays aren’t for everyone and don’t force yourself into that if you don’t have to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our modern world -- particularly in the development space -- we're connected to our job far more than we would like to admit.  Even if you don't have Slack notifications on your phone or you have setup do not disturb rules there is always a sense of someone being able to reach you if they really "need" to.  For some that's a pretty firm wall they aren't willing to cross but in reality that's almost expected of people nowadays.</p>
<p>While that feels <em>new</em> to say we're always connected and expected to be on-call for anything it's nothing new.  Doctors have essentially forever been on call and available in one way or another (picture the community doctor taking a carriage to a sick person in the 19th century or whatever other historical reference you like).  Car shops have 24-hour call lines for towing and emergency services.  Journalists are ready to jump into work when a story starts to break.  Even for jobs that have been around since before the industrial revolution we have farmers that literally live on the job with hours around the clock, pastors that live in parsonages often connected to their church and get visits throughout the day, or teachers that do lesson planning at all hours of the day.</p>
<p>In some ways it is made up and silly to say that jobs need to be cut-and-dry with the 8-to-5 hours that nicely start and cut off. Certainly some jobs have set hours and should stick to that (retail, hourly positions, etc) but a good portion of the jobs in society don't fit into that pattern by definition.  Pairing that with the lessons that the remote-only life-and-work-smashed-together patterns of the Covid pandemic taught us about how effective development organizations can be doing work remotely and asynchronously it seems that forcing that development into the 8-to-5 mold out of habit is at best just poorly justified.  To me it's convenient for the command-and-control patterns of old-timer business leaders to keep their false sense of security in place around development teams.</p>
<h3>Trust</h3>
<p>From the business side of this the lesson here is trust.  There <em>has to be</em> trust between workers and their leadership in order for any of this to work.  However, I'd argue that even in the old school model of making development teams come in 8 to 5 every day you have to trust them -- physical location and set working hours are not a substitute for trust.  On our company swag t-shirts it says "trust changes everything" and it really does.  If sales people can be remote and work non-standard hours then why can't development team members?  But this post is about my approach to my career and life, not about what's wrong with the software industry.</p>
<h2>Limited Agency</h2>
<p>The integrated life concept helped me rethink my relationship with work. But it was a post my mom shared from the wonderful <a href="https://substack.com/@katecbowler">Kate Bowler</a> about <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-182092988">celebrating limited agency</a> that helped me rethink my relationship with life itself. I had been slowly working on this post about the integrated life and Kate's post seemed to complete the picture for me. While the integrated life is about the career vs life connections, her post gets into setting good expectations and a healthy approach to life from another angle.</p>
<h3>Midlife Evaluations</h3>
<p>From Kate's post:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Over and over again, the message is the same: the only limit is you. If you could just overcome the mental block, the laziness, the lack of discipline, then the “real” version of your life could begin.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether it's the career mess and subsequent transition I went through in 2025 or the fact that I'm in my mid-40s there is a lot of reflection on life in my head these days.  And this idea of "the perfect life is just over the horizon" poisons my mind daily.  I sometimes think about Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise line "too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams" as there is a lot of truth in that.  Society and social media paint pictures that are just not real.  And the forever chase of those unrealistic goals causes us to miss out on what is amazing right in front of us.</p>
<p>Throughout my career up until last March I definitely was overly ambitious in how I approached work and what it could get me.  I did well and got a pretty comfortable life out of it as a result.  But I also missed out on other things and focused on work more than I should have.  As Kate mentions, the problem with focusing on optimization is that it's never enough to get to that goal.  Just like the idea of removing the blocks making your "real" life possible, if you get more work done then you just are given more.  There is always more work to do and the business world isn't structured to keep that work even.  Some professions work in ways that allow for you to get a benefit from really getting after it where you have a preset amount of work but that's not how most "corporate" jobs work out.</p>
<h3>Life's Interruptions</h3>
<p>Kate goes on to talk about interruptions to life being "spiritual and psychological resets".  These interruptions are sometimes planned and sometimes not, they can be positive or negative, long or short.  But they are important times to reflect and learn from instead of being pissed and beat-down.  The work environment change of last March initially did both of those things and I can't say I particularly know how I managed to get past that relatively quickly but I'm glad I did.  Recently my brother had some unexpected health things come up that triggered some deep reflection for me and my family.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Interruption is how we remember we are not machines...they arrive with unexpected mercy: snapping the illusion that we were ever fully in control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The integrated life approach to the work-life-balance discussion is along these same lines.  We aren't in control and should stop pretending we can do 8-5 work and 5-8 life.  We can't schedule our sicknesses, when friends have babies, or when our car might need some work.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Limited agency is the humility to admit, <em>I don’t get to steer the whole story</em>, paired with the courage to say, <em>but I can still choose something</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Just like the integrated life accepts the reality we're in for working in this modern world the limited agency accepts life will throw us curveballs and we should do our best to take them as they come.  Nobody will take them without a stumble or human reactions but we need to stop telling ourselves that there is a way to prevent them or be resistant to them.  To do that would be to isolate yourself entirely from literally everything else in the world.</p>
<h2>Takeaways</h2>
<p>This is a lot of words (by far my longest post to date) so what am I getting at? It really boils down to approaching life with a more realistic mindset - and finding work that supports that approach.</p>
<p>Changing jobs last year wasn't explicitly about "integrated life" or "limited agency" - I didn't have those terms yet. But the feelings driving that decision were real: I needed to work for an organization that trusts me to manage my own time and do my job well without micromanagement. Remote work and flexible hours aren't for everyone. But if that's what works best for the employee and the job allows for it, trust them to manage it. Let them do their job within their life, not the other way around.</p>
<p>What does that look like day-to-day? It means taking time for life when it comes up naturally, not just when it's "allowed." If I have a home project occupying my mind during work hours, I can go tackle it and come back to work after dinner when I'm more focused. Or maybe a friend who also works remote wants to work alongside each other while catching up. The point isn't rigid 8-to-5 boundaries - it's the flexibility to manage work and life in ways that make sense for me, while still delivering for my customers.</p>
<p>I'm not claiming this is easy or that I have it figured out. Life still throws curveballs, and I still stumble. But I'm done pretending that with enough planning or discipline I can control everything. I'm also done accepting that a job needs to control me -- there are better and healthier ways of working out there.  With all of this the goal isn't perfection - it's finding a sustainable rhythm that acknowledges reality instead of fighting it.</p>


Thumbnail

Integrated Life & Limited Agency

<p>I can't believe it's already been 90 days!  I started at <a href="https://www.improving.com/">Improving</a> as a Principal Consultant on August 11th and it's been a really wild ride since then.  Having spent nearly 21 years at <a href="https://www.biworldwide.com/">BI Worldwide</a> as a FTE there are quite a few things to adjust to moving into consulting.</p>
<h2>Learning Upon Learning</h2>
<p>With any job change, whether at a new role in the same company or at an entirely new company, there is learning involved.  However I've found there to be far more aspects to this learning than I expected.  During the couple weeks between turning in my resignation and starting at Improving I was thinking about learning GCP and Grafana best practices (both part of my first project).  But once I got started I realized just how much I didn't know.  New commute, new door system, new HR system, new office layout, new inter-department dynamics, new computer configurations, and so many other new things I won't bother listing them all.</p>
<p>I should be clear here though: this was incredibly exciting and even exhilarating.  I love learning and new challenges, both of which I now have in abundance!</p>
<h2>Good in All the Right Ways</h2>
<p>Throughout this transition --and even before I really started looking for a new job-- I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is important to me. I had to determine what I was hoping to get out of a change if for no other reason than to be clear I wasn't leaving out of spite. In talking to people in my life about this change and how it's going I have often used the phrase that this job is "better in all the ways that I wanted it to be better" which sounds very superficial, but it really reflects how I'm feeling. There were some parts of my old job that were pretty awesome, but they just did not outweigh the terrible parts.</p>
<p>It's a really weird feeling, though, to be working on something that isn't really mine and that I'm gonna be walking away from after a few months. After all, I spent the last decade of my life building an entire ecosystem from scratch.  However, now that I'm a quarter in I can say that I really thought that I would miss this far more than I do. Maybe at some point in the future I will want to get back to something long-term that I get to control the roadmap on but for right now this seemingly negative thing is actually a complete non-issue. In fact, the transition from project to project is still quite exciting to me and will help me learn more technologies, more things about business and most importantly, more things about myself.</p>
<h2>Missing Friends</h2>
<p>Far and away my biggest concern with leaving and the biggest reason that I stayed at BIW as long as I did were the amazing friends that I got to work with every day. Some of them I've been friends with for nearly half my life and the idea that I got to work with them was really special. I can't even really come up with the words to try and convey how heart wrenching it was to make the decision to end that era in my life. As I've told them: one key part of this new era is to make sure that I stay connected to them and they continue to be part of my life. I'm still figuring this out and learning how to be just friends with them and not coworkers that I'm also friends with. In some ways, it's very freeing and exciting to get to know them without the baggage of work but it certainly takes a lot more effort to see them and keep up with them now.</p>
<h2>The Irony</h2>
<p>It definitely is not lost on me that the mission of my new company is exactly what is at the core of what I think is wrong with my old company. Our mission (in my own words) is to help companies learn to trust and value their technology organizations. The lack of this trust was evident to me for years at BIW but I had been feeling like their opinions were changing until earlier this year when leadership made it clear how they still felt. The lightness I feel in conversations and in my daily work that results from this significant change really can't be put into words. Over all the years I had clearly become numb to how this impacted me both during my working day and outside of it.</p>
<h2>Looking Ahead</h2>
<p>At this point, I'm very convinced that this was the right decision for me. I didn't really have concerns that it wasn't but I'm far enough into it now that I am absolutely certain. I'm really looking forward to continuing to settle in to this new job and pattern of learning and everything that it brings to my life.</p>


Consulting 90 Day Check-In

<p><strong>Disclaimer: this book review is still in-progress and thus the analysis may seem to end abrubptly.</strong></p>
<p>While I've been "doing agile" for a long time now it is always good to refresh yourself on the roots of your processes.  This book is well written and still very useful in terms of guidance and best practices.  I'm sure if I read this every year I'd pull out different quotes and learnings but the fact that any software development book is still relevant a decade in is very indicative of its value and the transformative nature of these concepts.</p>
<h2>Output vs Impact</h2>
<p>There is a never-ending struggle of software development teams being asked to "go faster" and "do more" but I found the section about "good teams vs bad teams" (my renaming of the section) to be an intriguing angle on this struggle.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the common misconceptions in software development is that we're trying to get more output faster.  Because it would make sense that if there was too much to do, doing it faster would help, right?  But if you get the game right, you will realize that your job is not to build <em>more</em>--it's to build <em>less</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>At the end of the day, your job is to <em>minimize</em> output, and <em>maximize</em> outcome and impact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We can always ship more code and we can do things to ship more code faster.  Increasingly I see posts about AI-driven development being a game-changer in this way.  AI can <em>certainly</em> help us ship more code faster, of that I have no doubt.  However these quotes are spot-on in that we shouldn't be focused on the quantity of output.  Whether we measure in lines of code, issues, closed, deployments made, or any other GitLab-driven metric we're stuck without the whole picture.  The <em>quality</em> of the product that comes out of those metrics is what truly matters.  And that is a very difficult metric to track and correlate.</p>


User Story Mapping Book

<p>For essentially as long as we've had our Outback I've thought about building something that fits nicely into the back to make our camping setup more organized and just how we need it.  We've had a very similar setup for that entire time that is comprised for four things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Our Coleman stainless steel cooler,</li>
<li>Some cheap Sterilite drawers from Target that serves as our drawers and cabinets for pots, pans, silverware, towels, dishes, and whatever else we throw in there,</li>
<li>A nearly-discarded drawer box from our kitchen remodel that wasn't quite the right size that serves as our food box, and</li>
<li>All sorts of random bags, totes, boxes, and other ways to cram stuff into the back of the car.</li>
</ol>
<p>While some custom-made storage isn't going to solve for #1 (or #4) it could make an improvement on #2 and #3 right off the bat and maybe even start to infringe upon #4's territory as we refine it to our needs.</p>
<h2>Initial Prototype</h2>
<p>While I've been big on <em>software prototypes</em> for my whole career the idea of <em>woodworking prototypes</em> is still pretty new for me.  It started when we were configuring the bathroom I was going to put into the basement and I needed a to-scale toilet, vanity, and shower.  For this one it was just to get a sense for how to work around the liner that protects the floor of the back area as well as give more clear visual cues for how this might all start to go for sizing and the angle of the seatback.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/camping-car-storage/initial-prototype.jpg" alt="A black SUV&#x27;s trunk is open, showing a cooler and two wooden crates inside."></p>
<h2>Drawers Prototype</h2>
<p>Next step was to break that down a bit into something representing the individual "cabinets" and the drawers that our stuff would go into.  This helped to further shape the mental model of how this would all fit and gave me something tangible to see for what all we could fit into this space and how it would work together.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/camping-car-storage/drawers-prototype.jpg" alt="The back of an SUV with a Coleman cooler and two crates in the trunk."></p>
<p>The most important thing this identified for me was that the cooler couldn't sit in the middle.  None of these drawers were going to be large enough to fit the pots and pans (which are the largest single thing to store).  So any real implementaiton would need to include a larger drawer on one side or the other to fit those.  This would also make it so the drawers on that side are also large enough for the plates and bowls.</p>
<h2>Real-ish Drawers</h2>
<p>Building off that I felt like I had a decent idea of how this could all work and was starting to run low on time before our 2025 trip so I kind of just went for it.  I built some real drawers and got actual drawer slides.  These are push-to-open drawer slides so they will stay closed while we're driving (a problem we had with the plastic drawers that required a bungee which was not fun to deal with).</p>
<p>This was the first iteration that got revealed to the family (most importantly Trephaena) and the reviews were pretty positive.  The cooler drawer is pretty sweet and the overall idea is great.  One drawer was being annoying to get to latch in place and the left drawers are pretty tight but otherwise it was definitely a success.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/camping-car-storage/realish-drawers.jpg" alt="The back of an SUV with a Coleman cooler and various camping supplies on display."></p>
<h2>Work-in-Progress</h2>
<p>We're discussing what more we want to try to do before we leave (two weeks from today) so we'll see where we land on that.  For now this is going to come with us and we'll test it on the road.  Part of my whole reason for doing this is to learn and iterate on each trip so I have no allusions this is going to be perfect but I'm super excited I finally started and it's going reasonably well so far.</p>


A black SUV's trunk is open, showing a cooler and two wooden crates inside.

The back of an SUV with a Coleman cooler and two crates in the trunk.

The back of an SUV with a Coleman cooler and various camping supplies on display.

Camping Car Storage

<p>Our dining table is the same one that my grandparents had at their house when I was growing up (and quite a few years before I was born).  It's been a great table and expands from a 42" circle all the way to 82" after adding the leaves.  However it is now something like 60 years old and had definitely started to show its age.  On top of dings and dents the finish had started to get tacky and things would stick to it.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/old-finish-with-cookies.jpg" alt="A wooden table set with baked cookies, a mixing bowl, and other baking supplies."></p>
<h2>Temporary Table</h2>
<p>While I hoped the stripping and refinishing process was going to be pretty quick I've done enough projects to know estimates are a joke and it inevitably would take two or three times as long as I planned.  Since this is our only proper dining space and we use it for breakfast pretty much every day I figured I should whip up a quick temporary table.  Perhaps I overdid it but I just figured if I made a temporary table then the project would go quickly and if I threw a board on some sawhorses it would end up taking months.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/temporary-table.jpg" alt="An oval plywood tabletop on sawhorses sits in a messy workshop with various supplies around it." title="Temporary Tabl"></p>
<h2>Breaking it Down</h2>
<p>Started with just pulling it all apart taking off the apron and hardware.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/underside-half-stripped.jpg" alt="A round wooden table with metal brackets and hardware is disassembled on a wooden pallet.">
<img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/underside-no-hardware.jpg" alt="Two halves of a wooden table top sit on sawhorses in a garage or workshop."></p>
<p>The apron had some very dated decorative trim on it that had accumulated a lot of grime over the years and also had started cracking off.  Rather than trying to patch it and strip it I decided to just remove it entirely.  Cleans the lines up a bit and simplified the refinishing process quite a bit.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/apron-not-stripped.jpg" alt="Two curved wooden pieces rest on a workbench beside a sander, indicating ongoing woodworking."></p>
<p>There were a few spots (no pictures, sorry) where the apron cracked that I just had to patch with woodfiller.  I could've re-veneered it but that seemed like overkill and wouldn't have matched anyway.</p>
<h2>Stripping and Sanding</h2>
<p>Once I had it all broken down, the apron details removed, and cracks patched it was time for getting rid of that old finish.  I used a bunch of <a href="https://citristrip.com/">Citristrip</a> as the first couple rounds of removing all that finish and grime.  Once that was scraped off I got going on sanding using 60, 120, and 220 grit as things progressed.  The color change is pretty dramatic!</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/legs-one-stripped.jpg" alt="Four pieces of cut wood, three stained and one not, lay on a work bench."></p>
<p>As things progressed I also used my <a href="https://www.rockler.com/rockler-circle-cutting-jig">Rockler Circle Cutting Jig</a> to remove the dated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogee">ogee profile</a> on the ends and just ripped it off with a circular saw for the leaves.  Then it was just sanding, sanding, sanding!</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/midway-progress.jpg" alt="An unfinished oval wooden table on a stand in a cluttered garage workshop area.">
<img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/sanding-complete.jpg" alt="Several wood boards and shapes on a work bench, with various tools in the background."></p>
<h2>Finished Up</h2>
<p>After the sanding was finally done it was time for finishing it up.  After some color and finish testing trials I landed on <a href="https://varathanestain.com/varathane-water-based-polyurethane/">Water-based Varathane Polyurethane</a>.  Offered a nice easy application process and kept the table from ending up too yellow.</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/finish-applied.jpg" alt="A disassembled wooden table with three removable leaves in front of a blue car."></p>
<p>Once that was all applied, sanded, and dried it was time to get it put back into the kitchen!  Looks pretty great I think although now I want to redo the floors as it kind of blends in a bit too much.  Oh well, that's for another day!</p>
<p><img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/finished-top-view.jpg" alt="A round wooden table is shown with a white chair underneath it.">
<img src="/posts/dining-table-refinish/complete-and-reinstalled.jpg" alt="An oval wooden dining table with three white chairs pushed in around it."></p>


A round wood table with three chairs is placed in a messy dining room.

A wooden table set with baked cookies, a mixing bowl, and other baking supplies.

An oval plywood tabletop on sawhorses sits in a messy workshop with various supplies around it.

Temporary Tabl

A round wooden table with metal brackets and hardware is disassembled on a wooden pallet.

Two halves of a wooden table top sit on sawhorses in a garage or workshop.

Two curved wooden pieces rest on a workbench beside a sander, indicating ongoing woodworking.

Four pieces of cut wood, three stained and one not, lay on a work bench.

An unfinished oval wooden table on a stand in a cluttered garage workshop area.

Several wood boards and shapes on a work bench, with various tools in the background.

A disassembled wooden table with three removable leaves in front of a blue car.

A round wooden table is shown with a white chair underneath it.

An oval wooden dining table with three white chairs pushed in around it.

Dining Table Refinish

<p>I've never had a situation at work that's driven me to get into Bedrock but it's long overdue.  I created a <a href="https://github.com/arsdehnel/bedrock-exploration">quick repo</a> to play around with it, capture some scripts, and see where it led.  It was my first real development calling models in a way that would be used for anything semi-real.  I'd done some scripts and <code>curl</code> commands to call chatGPT and all that but this had a bit more purpose behind it.</p>
<h2>Initial Experience</h2>
<p>The very first thing you have to do in the console is follow a couple ClickOps things to enable access to the models which is a little awkward.  I get why it needs to be there to avoid accidental spend on a model that could cost a lot of money but it's not the easiest onboarding experience especially because of how the AWS console continues to struggle with good UX.</p>
<p>After that the experience was actually pretty good.  Once you have a model you can use (the access is granted immediately after finding the flow to request it) there is a playground setup that makes it very easy to interact with them.  This is similar to other AI model interactions, they didn't invent anything new here but also didn't try to be clever like AWS sometimes does.</p>
<p>Within a few minutes I had a model setup and was making the requests I needed to prove out the use cases I had in mind.  This was easier than I expected and rather pleasant.  I was fooled into thinking this was going to be flawless exploration 😉.</p>
<h2>Moving to the SDK</h2>
<p>At this point I figured I was ready to take those clicks I was doing in the console and turn them into some SDK calls.  Being the JavaScript developer that I am I created a <code>git</code> repo and installed <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/v3/latest/Package/-aws-sdk-client-bedrock-runtime/">the AWS SDK for Bedrock Runtime</a>.  So far so good.</p>
<p>However moving on to the <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/v3/latest/Package/-aws-sdk-client-bedrock-runtime/Interface/InvokeModelCommandInput/">Invoke Model Command</a> and it's only input the <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/v3/latest/Package/-aws-sdk-client-bedrock-runtime/Interface/InvokeModelCommandInput/">Invoke Model Command Input</a> I hit my first stumbling block.  There is essentially no documentation for this method.  Since this is AWS I just figured it wasn't in the SDK docs but that it was somewhere on the internet.</p>
<p>I was wrong.</p>
<p>Since Bedrock is just a system that runs a variety of models for you the runtime SDK is essentially just an AWS authentication wrapper on the models themselves.  So every model takes a different input and even within models your input might need to be different based on what you are trying to do.  That totally makes sense in hindsight but compared to essentially any other AWS service I've used it's not how they work.  And there doens't seem to be any indication of this anywhere in their docs.  No pointers to suggest that each model is different and you should refer to the docs of that model instead of anything within AWS. Maybe people more familiar with the AI/Model space would know this more readily but I sure didn't and it got quite frustrating.</p>
<h2>Initial Scripts</h2>
<p>Once I got past that stumbling block I got things scripted out pretty easily.  The <code>Model ID</code> the API requires isn't <em>quite</em> what the console provides but you just need to prefix the provided ID with <code>us.</code> and things work.  Another undocumented thing but not the worst thing to struggle through.</p>
<p>My first few things were based roughly on asks from the business at work.  While this wasn't on the clock work or even things we were being directly asked to do they were real requirements that I could easily script for to help me figure out how to use Bedrock.</p>
<ol>
<li>Alt Text Generation: give a model an image and get back a description of the image to be used as Alt Text to improve the accessibility of our site.</li>
<li>Ecard Generator: we have a mechanism for sending ecards to coworkers on our site so having AI generate a card for you right in the system seemed pretty handy.</li>
<li>Enhance: generic AI text interaction where it can take something you wrote and make it more professional or heart-felt (ironically).</li>
</ol>
<h2>Final Thoughts</h2>
<p>While these were pretty simple use cases and all are done with prebuilt models it was a good toe-dipping exercise.  While I had some frustration with the AWS API I still was able to get something useful and learn a fair bit about how Bedrock works and where it could be useful.  I'm sure it's not always the most efficient method for running models but it sure is easy and I'm not going to stand up my own model for home projects so having something that's super easy to use and can be baked right into the rest of my infrastructure bill is a welcome option.</p>


Adam Dehnel

Posts

Integrated Life & Limited Agency

Consulting 90 Day Check-In

User Story Mapping Book

Camping Car Storage

Dining Table Refinish

AWS Bedrock Exploration