Write-ups
of the work we do by hand.
We write about what we have tested ourselves: architecture, vulnerabilities, the economics of a rollout, estimates line by line. We do not retell other people’s press releases.
17 articles
Is robocalling legal: the line between a service call and advertising
Part 2 of Article 18 of the advertising law directly bans automated dialling for advertising purposes. We break down which calling scenarios stay clear of the ban and how to check.
Rewrite from scratch or refactor: a decision by the numbers
Four measurable criteria that show when refactoring already costs more than rewriting, and why a full redo fails in most cases.
Next.js or WordPress: a comparison across six parameters, no religion
Speed, cost of ownership, security, content editing, integrations, and hiring a contractor. Where WordPress wins fairly and when a migration does not pay off.
How to tell your site has been hacked: nine signs and the first hour after
Symptoms of compromise you can spot without special tools, and the order of actions in the first sixty minutes, from isolation to gathering evidence.
Is web scraping legal in Russia: what the case law says
There is no direct ban, but there are four provisions that scraping falls under: the neighbouring right in a database, copyright, personal data, and the terms of use.
RAG in plain words: how to make a neural network answer from your documents
Why you cannot simply "train the model on your regulations", how search over a knowledge base works under the hood, and the five places RAG systems break most often.
How an AI agent differs from a chatbot: the difference you see on the invoice
A scripted bot, a bot with a neural network, and an AI agent with tools are three different things hiding under one word. What each can do, where it breaks, and what it costs per month.
Telegram Mini App or a plain bot: how to choose without overpaying
How a Mini App differs from a button-based bot, where the limits of a dialogue end, and the four signs that tell you you need a full interface.
What a Telegram bot costs: four price brackets and what lands in each
A breakdown of bot prices from a ₽15,000 notifier to a ₽400,000 Mini App. Hours for each type, what pushes an estimate up, and why a ₽5,000 offer ends in a redo.
Building a Telegram bot that takes payments in 6 days: an architecture breakdown
What actually takes six days, where the day spent on approvals hides, and why the payment scheme is decided before the first line of code is written.
5 vulnerabilities we find in 8 out of 10 Telegram bots
An unverified signature, other people’s orders by walking the ids, secrets in the repository. Five findings that turn up in production more often than anything else.
Prompt injection: how AI agents get broken and what to do about it
Why the vulnerability looks like ordinary text, how direct injection differs from indirect, and which countermeasures actually work rather than just feeling like protection.
An AI agent instead of first-line support: the honest economics of a rollout
Working it out on real figures: what the rollout costs, what running it costs, where the saving comes from and when there will not be one.
152-FZ for a website: a 14-point checklist that closes 90% of the risk
What has to be on a website that collects enquiries: consents, a policy, localisation, notifying the regulator and retention periods. Without the legal fog.
Voice AI agents in 2026: what already works and what is still marketing
Latency, interruption, recognition in noise and the phone line: where voice agents genuinely apply, and where the demo is prettier than reality.
How we took apart 40 000 lines of legacy code in three weeks
The developer left, there is no documentation, and every change breaks the module next door. What to do, step by step: a map of the system, characterisation tests, CI—and why a rewrite from scratch is almost always the wrong answer.
What development really costs: an estimate broken down line by line
Where the hours go on a 250 thousand rouble project: how much for the front end, how much for integrations, how much for tests, and why “just a website” can cost twice as much.
New breakdowns
once a month.
No industry news and no “ten trends”. Only what we have tested on projects ourselves.