Writing

Working it out in public.

Notes on the decisions behind ChatBrace — the economics, the trade-offs and the things we got wrong first.

Engineering18 Sep 2026 · 6 min

Why the knowledge base has a hard character cap

The cap and prompt caching are the same decision. Chunking would vary the prompt on every message and cost us the cache, which at these sizes is worth more than retrieval.

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Product · 11 Sep 2026

Every design is now free on every plan

Rendering a design costs us nothing, so charging for it was theatre. The paid feature is copying the source, which is the part that is actually irreversible.

4 min

Compliance · 4 Sep 2026

AI disclosure is now built into all twenty-four designs

Article 50 of the EU AI Act took effect on 2 August 2026. People must be told they are talking to an AI before the conversation starts, so it is no longer configurable.

5 min

Engineering · 27 Aug 2026

A cold cache costs more than no cache at all

Writing a cache entry costs 1.27x. If the read never lands you have paid a premium for nothing, which is exactly what happens on a quiet chatbot.

7 min

Product · 19 Aug 2026

Refusal rate is the metric nobody asks for

A rising refusal rate does not mean the bot got worse. It usually means your product moved and your documentation did not.

4 min

Engineering · 12 Aug 2026

Fifteen kilobytes, enforced by CI

The widget loads on other people's sites. Bloating their pages would contradict the pitch, so the budget fails the build rather than filing a ticket.

5 min