Joel Hanson

Apicurio Registry

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Schema registry migration and upstream MCP work for IBM Event Streams.

Configuring Kafka Connector with Docker: A Step-by-Step Guide

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 12:17:49 +0530

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the process of setting up a Kafka connector using Docker and docker-compose.yml. We’ll focus on configuring a file connector, which is useful for reading data from files and writing data to files using Kafka.

ContextLayer

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Transform any REST API into an MCP server — connectors that make existing APIs usable by LLM tools.

Supercharging Your AI: Setting Up RAG with PostgreSQL and pgvector

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 21:28:28 +0530

Learn how to implement a powerful Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system using PostgreSQL and pgvector. This comprehensive guide covers everything from setting up a custom PostgreSQL Docker image to creating a fully functional RAG query system with vector embeddings and language model inference.

Convert Your Django DRF Project to MCP in 5 Minutes

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 15:20:06 +0530

The Problem: When APIs Meet AI Assistants
#

A few weeks ago, I was experimenting with Model Context Protocol (MCP) for a Kafka integration project. The experience was eye-opening - being able to interact with complex systems through natural language felt like a glimpse into the future of development workflows.

Kafka MCP Server

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Expose Kafka cluster operations as LLM-accessible tools via the Model Context Protocol.

Kafka Common Problems

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Operational playbooks for common Kafka production issues — symptoms, diagnosis steps, and fixes you can walk with a customer.

Setting Up a Kafka Cluster Without Zookeeper Using Docker

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 23:14:04 +0530

Introduction
#

In this post, we will walk through the process of setting up an Apache Kafka cluster without using Zookeeper, leveraging Kafka’s KRaft mode for metadata management. Kafka no longer requires a Zookeeper instance, simplifying the cluster setup. We will use Docker to deploy this Kafka cluster with the latest version of Kafka.

bijou64

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Shrink Kafka integer payloads with a compact encoding library for Java/Kafka apps.

Building an MCP Server for Your Kafka Cluster

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A step‑by‑step guide to using FastMCP and the MCP protocol to expose Kafka operations (topic management, produce/consume, troubleshooting) as LLM‑accessible tools.

Markdown2Medium

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Convert Hugo-friendly Markdown into Medium-ready posts with a live preview and one-click copy.

Kafka Connector Template

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Production-ready Kafka Connect template with Testcontainers integration tests.

Wayfare

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Travel bucket list and savings tracker with MCP. Same trip context in ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor.

Antarctic Iceberg Tracker

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Real-time iceberg monitoring with NASA data, automated pipelines, and GitHub as a data platform.

leetok

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Mobile-first swipe feed for interview problems and free learning resources.

Stream Wars

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A real-time multiplayer tap battle that turns every click into a Kafka event you can inspect.

Habit Tracker

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Aesthetic challenge-grid habit tracker hosted on GitHub Pages.

Nursing Tracker

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Home-screen PWA for nursing/feeding logs, built and shipped on GitHub Pages.

SSE Kafka Connector

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Kafka Connect source that turns Server-Sent Events streams into Kafka topics — used in Event Streams demos.

Django DRF → MCP

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Turn an existing Django REST Framework project into MCP tools for AI assistants in minutes.

GitHub Data Platform

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Turn GitHub Actions + Pages into a free scrape-and-serve data API — template and weather example.

SSE Stream Monitor

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Minimal Server-Sent Events demo — a live CPU/RAM dashboard with almost no client code.

Flask + Restate

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Side-by-side Flask apps showing durable execution with Restate versus plain request handlers.

Django Celery → Restate

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Compare Celery-style async tasks in Django with Restate durable execution on the same workload.

When One Kafka Partition Takes All the Heat

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0530

Hot partitions show up as lag on one partition, a stressed broker, and consumers that do nothing when you scale out. Confirm the skew, fix the key, and recreate it locally with a Docker Compose demo.

Wayfare: I Plan Trips More Than I Take Them

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I keep losing trip research across ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor. So I built Wayfare: a travel bucket list with savings tracking, plus MCP so connected chatbots can use the same trip context.

Wayfare: trip context over MCP and OAuth

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Travel bucket list and savings tracker. Same trip data in Claude, Cursor, and ChatGPT, per user via OAuth.

The Connector That Kept Retrying and Never Said So

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0530

A Kafka Connect MQ Sink looked healthy while messages never reached MQ — RetriableException loops in put() sit outside errors.retry.timeout. How we added mq.retry.timeout.ms so silent retries become visible failures.

About

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Open to global and remote roles.
hello [at] joelhanson.com · Resume (PDF) · LinkedIn · GitHub

About me
#

Hey, I am Joel.
distributed systems, event streaming, and production backends. usually shipping something.

Aesthetic Habit Tracker: A Challenge Grid That Lives in Your Browser

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most habit apps want an account, a subscription, and a notification every hour. I built a minimalist challenge tracker that stores everything locally, exports to PDF, and ships free on GitHub Pages.

Challenge-grid habit tracker, no account

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A local-only challenge grid — tap a day, export PDF, ship on GitHub Pages.

From Prompt to Home Screen: Shipping Nursing Tracker with GitHub Pages

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My wife was losing track of feeds, so I built a one-tap nursing timer that grew into a pumping log, and shipped it for free on GitHub Pages with no database and no app store.

Send Half the Bytes Over the Network: Cut Kafka Integer Payloads with Bijou64

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every Kafka record with a Long value you produce sends 8 bytes over the wire, even when the value is 42. Bijou64 encodes integers in 1–3 bytes with drop-in serializers, cutting network transfer and replication traffic on integer-heavy topics by up to 50% or more.

Shrink Kafka int payloads with bijou64

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Variable-length unsigned 64-bit ints — small numbers stay small on the wire.

Stream Wars: A Simple Game to Explain Kafka

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0530

I built Stream Wars as a tiny tap game to demo how Kafka works, by turning every tap in the browser into a real Kafka event you can inspect.

From Celery to Restate: Rethinking Async Tasks in Django

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 17:00:00 +0530

The Celery Question
#

For years, when someone asked “How do I handle background tasks in Django?”, the answer was almost always “Use Celery”. And for good reason. Celery is mature, battle-tested, and has solved async task processing for countless Django applications. It has extensive documentation, a large ecosystem of plugins, and most Django developers have at least some experience with it.

Adding Durable Execution to Flask Applications with Restate

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 16:00:00 +0530

The Challenge of Reliable Background Operations
#

Building web applications with Flask is straightforward until you need to handle operations that can fail. Database operations timeout, external APIs become unavailable, and network connections drop. These failures are inevitable in production systems, yet handling them gracefully often requires significant engineering effort.

Introducing ContextLayer: Transform Any REST API into an MCP Server in Minutes

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 10:00:00 +0530

The Problem: Connecting AI Assistants to Your APIs
#

As AI assistants like Claude and VS Code Copilot become more powerful, developers are discovering a critical bottleneck: these AI tools can’t directly interact with our existing REST APIs.

SSE Kafka Connector: Stream Real-time Events into Kafka

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 21:15:47 +0530

The Problem: Getting Real-time Data into Kafka
#

Have you ever tried to stream Wikipedia changes or other real-time Server-Sent Events (SSE) updates into Kafka? If you have, you probably wrote custom Kafka producer and consumer code to handle these events, managed reconnections, and built your own error handling.

Turn GitHub into Your Free Data Platform: Building APIs with GitHub Actions

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 14:47:05 +0530

What if I told you that you could build, host, and maintain data APIs completely free using just GitHub? Here’s how I built a production-ready data platform without spending a penny on hosting.

Tracking Antarctic Giants: Building a Real-Time Iceberg Monitor with NASA Data

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 12:14:10 +0530

Ever wondered where those massive icebergs the size of cities are drifting? I built a system to track them in real-time using NASA satellite data.

The Problem: Lost Giants in the Southern Ocean
#

Antarctic icebergs are some of the most fascinating phenomena on Earth. These floating ice mountains—some larger than entire countries—break off from ice shelves and drift across the Southern Ocean for years. But tracking their movements has always been challenging.

Mastering Integration Testing for Kafka Connectors: A Complete Guide

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 21:40:00 +0530

Integration testing is crucial for Kafka Connectors to ensure they work correctly with external systems. This guide provides a comprehensive approach to setting up and executing integration tests for Kafka Connectors, covering everything from environment setup to best practices for testing source and sink connectors.

How I Automated My Markdown Publishing on Medium (No More Manual Work!)

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 18:30:13 +0530

Tired of manually reformatting Markdown for Medium? Discover my open-source tool that converts Hugo-friendly Markdown into perfectly formatted Medium posts instantly.

Creating Tombstone Records Using kafka-console-producer.sh: A Quick Guide

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 16:03:27 +0530

A practical guide to creating tombstone records for Kafka compacted topics using the kafka-console-producer.sh command-line tool with the null marker feature

Kafka tombstones via console producer

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Key + null value = tombstone. Use null.marker so the CLI can send it.

Build Custom Kafka Connectors Fast with This Open-Source Template

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:19:42 +0530

Apache Kafka is a powerful distributed event streaming platform, and Kafka Connect makes it easy to integrate Kafka with external systems. While many pre-built connectors exist, real-world applications often need custom connectors tailored for proprietary systems, custom logic, or advanced error handling. That’s where this production-ready template comes in—it removes the boilerplate and gives you everything you need to build, test, and deploy connectors with ease.

Filtering Tombstone Records in Kafka Connect

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:19:08 +0530

Kafka Connect provides a flexible way to process streaming data using Single Message Transforms (SMTs). If you need to filter out tombstone records (records with null values), you should use the generic Filter transformation along with the RecordIsTombstone predicate.

Server-Sent Events: Build Real-Time Web Apps with Minimal Code

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 21:19:08 +0530

In this technical deep-dive, we unravel the power of Server-Sent Events (SSE), a game-changing web technology that simplifies real-time communication. Developers often struggle with complex, resource-intensive methods for creating live updates, but SSE offers an elegant solution that’s both lightweight and powerful.

Online Machine Learning: Real-time Image Classification with CIFAR10 Dataset and Kafka

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 18:12:07 +0530

This blog post explores online machine learning through a practical example using the CIFAR10 dataset and Apache Kafka.

Git Aliases to Supercharge Your Workflow

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Git aliases are a powerful workflow tool that create shortcuts to frequently used Git commands.

Mastering the Find Command: Unleashing Unix File Management Power

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 08:03:02 +0000

Discover the unparalleled capabilities of the ‘find’ command in Unix systems. From basic file searches to advanced manipulations, mastering ‘find’ empowers users to efficiently navigate, search, and manage files. With practical examples and powerful techniques, this blog unveils the full potential of ‘find’, transforming your Unix experience into one of seamless productivity and control. Unlock the power of Unix file management with the mastery of the ‘find’ command.

Delete logs older than 7 days with find

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

find + -mtime + -delete is safer than a recursive rm when you scope the path.

Mastering the Egg Drop: A Math Heist Unveiled

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 11:20:41 +0530

Mastering the egg drop involves a careful blend of strategy, mathematics, and optimization. From crafting a plan with two replicas to understanding the arithmetic behind the sum formula, the jewel thief’s mission highlights the fascinating intersection of math and real-world problem-solving. As we unravel the complexities, we find that breaking a few eggs may require a dash of strategic brilliance and a pinch of mathematical finesse.

Crafting Command-Line Magic with Ease

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 11:23:15 +0530

Different ways to accept arguments in a Bash script

Building a CSV Reader in C with Python Integration

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:08:08 +0530

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files are a common format for storing tabular data. In this blog post, we’ll explore the process of creating a simple CSV reader in C using CPython standard library.

My First Post

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 14:09:49 +0000

This my first blog post on my personal website.

Search

joelhanson025@gmail.com (Joel Hanson) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use the search button in the header (or press the search shortcut) to find posts and projects by title, tags, or content.

Joel Hanson

Apicurio Registry

Configuring Kafka Connector with Docker: A Step-by-Step Guide

ContextLayer

Supercharging Your AI: Setting Up RAG with PostgreSQL and pgvector

Convert Your Django DRF Project to MCP in 5 Minutes

The Problem: When APIs Meet AI Assistants #

Kafka MCP Server

Kafka Common Problems

Setting Up a Kafka Cluster Without Zookeeper Using Docker

Introduction #

bijou64

Building an MCP Server for Your Kafka Cluster

Markdown2Medium

Kafka Connector Template

Wayfare

Antarctic Iceberg Tracker

leetok

Stream Wars

Habit Tracker

Nursing Tracker

SSE Kafka Connector

Django DRF → MCP

GitHub Data Platform

SSE Stream Monitor

Flask + Restate

Django Celery → Restate

When One Kafka Partition Takes All the Heat

Wayfare: I Plan Trips More Than I Take Them

Wayfare: trip context over MCP and OAuth

The Connector That Kept Retrying and Never Said So

About

About me #

Aesthetic Habit Tracker: A Challenge Grid That Lives in Your Browser

Challenge-grid habit tracker, no account

From Prompt to Home Screen: Shipping Nursing Tracker with GitHub Pages

Send Half the Bytes Over the Network: Cut Kafka Integer Payloads with Bijou64

Shrink Kafka int payloads with bijou64

Stream Wars: A Simple Game to Explain Kafka

From Celery to Restate: Rethinking Async Tasks in Django

The Celery Question #

Adding Durable Execution to Flask Applications with Restate

The Challenge of Reliable Background Operations #

Introducing ContextLayer: Transform Any REST API into an MCP Server in Minutes

The Problem: Connecting AI Assistants to Your APIs #

SSE Kafka Connector: Stream Real-time Events into Kafka

The Problem: Getting Real-time Data into Kafka #

Turn GitHub into Your Free Data Platform: Building APIs with GitHub Actions

Tracking Antarctic Giants: Building a Real-Time Iceberg Monitor with NASA Data

The Problem: Lost Giants in the Southern Ocean #

Mastering Integration Testing for Kafka Connectors: A Complete Guide

How I Automated My Markdown Publishing on Medium (No More Manual Work!)

Creating Tombstone Records Using kafka-console-producer.sh: A Quick Guide

Kafka tombstones via console producer

Build Custom Kafka Connectors Fast with This Open-Source Template

Filtering Tombstone Records in Kafka Connect

Server-Sent Events: Build Real-Time Web Apps with Minimal Code

Online Machine Learning: Real-time Image Classification with CIFAR10 Dataset and Kafka

Git Aliases to Supercharge Your Workflow

Mastering the Find Command: Unleashing Unix File Management Power

Delete logs older than 7 days with find

Mastering the Egg Drop: A Math Heist Unveiled

Crafting Command-Line Magic with Ease

Building a CSV Reader in C with Python Integration

My First Post

Search

The Problem: When APIs Meet AI Assistants
#

Introduction
#

About me
#

The Celery Question
#

The Challenge of Reliable Background Operations
#

The Problem: Connecting AI Assistants to Your APIs
#

The Problem: Getting Real-time Data into Kafka
#

The Problem: Lost Giants in the Southern Ocean
#