---
title: "Journal - Martin Hicks"
description: "Technical writing by Martin Hicks, software developer and AWS consultant. Real problems from real projects - what I tried, what broke, what worked."
canonical: https://martinhicks.dev/articles/1
---

# Journal

Notes from real projects - AWS, DynamoDB, Rust, home servers, and whatever open source tool I'm currently building.

---

## Articles

  25th June 2026

### [Dynoxide 0.11.0: wasm on npm, plus a stack of fixes](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-0110-wasm-on-npm)

Dynoxide 0.11.0 packages the browser engine as @dynoxide/wasm-engine - npm install and run a DynamoDB engine client-side - and a stack of correctness fixes, most of them turned up by the conformance suite.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-0110-wasm-on-npm)

  9th June 2026

### [I watched DynamoDB change under my conformance suite](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynamodb-changed-its-validation-errors)

The reference in my DynamoDB conformance suite went red: real AWS had reworded its validation errors. Two regions have the new wording, two still have the old - a rollout caught mid-flight, with the suite watching the reference move.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynamodb-changed-its-validation-errors)

  3rd June 2026

### [Build the squad. Own the platform. The org chart will catch up.](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/build-the-squad-own-the-platform)

Once the technology works, deploying AI agents becomes an organisational problem - where it lives, who owns it, who carries the risk. My answer: build a deployment squad, own the platform, and let the org chart catch up.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/build-the-squad-own-the-platform)

  29th May 2026

### [Dynoxide 0.10.0: it runs in the browser now](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-0100-browser-and-docker)

The same DynamoDB engine now runs in a browser tab on OPFS, there's an official ~5 MB Docker image, and a storage-backend trait sits underneath it all. The biggest dynoxide release since the engine itself, and the first that breaks things.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-0100-browser-and-docker)

  28th May 2026

### [Running iai-callgrind on Apple Silicon](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/running-iai-callgrind-on-apple-silicon)

iai-callgrind needs Valgrind. Valgrind has zero Apple Silicon support. Here's the native arm64 Docker workaround I use to run deterministic instruction-count benchmarks locally - seccomp trap, --locked gotcha and all.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/running-iai-callgrind-on-apple-silicon)

  26th May 2026

### [How close is your DynamoDB emulator to AWS?](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynamodb-conformance-org)

My DynamoDB conformance suite has a site now. Eight emulators, 684 tests, all scored against live AWS DynamoDB, with fresh results every run - standings, per-target history and the full matrix included.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynamodb-conformance-org)

  12th May 2026

### [Filing my first security advisory](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/filing-my-first-security-advisory)

Logged into GitHub yesterday, hit a Dependabot alert on dynoxide, ended up filing my first GHSA. Here's what I'd tell past-me about the form, the order of operations, and the bug itself.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/filing-my-first-security-advisory)

  5th May 2026

### [Dynoxide patch notes: 0.9.10 to 0.9.12](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-patch-notes-0910-0912)

Notes from the latest stretch of dynoxide patch releases - what shipped, what got fixed, and the takeaways.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-patch-notes-0910-0912)

  2nd May 2026

### [A year with my Intel N100 home server: what changed](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/n100-home-server-a-year-on)

A year on from the £250 N100 server build. The boring infrastructure won. Unbound got removed, Tailscale earned its place, and the disk debate I lost sleep over turned out not to matter.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/n100-home-server-a-year-on)

  13th April 2026

### [Building a DynamoDB conformance suite](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-conformance-suite)

AWS doesn't ship a conformance suite for DynamoDB emulators, so I built one. 526 tests, ground-truthed against real DynamoDB. Dynoxide passes all of them. DynamoDB Local fails 42.

[Read article →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/dynoxide-conformance-suite)

[← Newer articles](https://martinhicks.dev/articles)Page 2 of 4[Older articles →](https://martinhicks.dev/articles/2)

---

Source: https://martinhicks.dev/articles/1