.tip

May 5, 2026 · one of the small things

Scan for secrets before the commit exists

Once a key is in git history, it's in every clone and every fork, and rotating it is the only fix. A pre-commit hook catches it while it's still just a file.

# .pre-commit-config.yaml or a lefthook entry
gitleaks protect --staged

Turn on the host's push protection too, as a second net. The first net is on the laptop, before anything gets pushed.

securitygit

~/tips/today — 2026-10-19

~cat tips/today

Never build an index on a live table without CONCURRENTLY

postgresqlmigrations

A plain CREATE INDEX takes a lock that blocks every write to the table for the whole build. On a big table that means minutes of outage that look like a hung app.

CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY orders_customer_idx ON orders (customer_id);

It's slower and can't run inside a transaction, so you'll have to tell your migration tool. If it fails halfway, it leaves an invalid index behind, so check pg_index.indisvalid and drop it before you retry.

↵ open y yesterday l ls /tips

esc close