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Will's Journal

Page 11 of Will's Journal.

This is page 11 of Will's Journal — a later slice of the archive, not the hub.

Writing on AI visibility, automation, agents, and websites — from Spurlock Studios.

Which notes are on page 11 of Will's Journal?

Nested brass frames. Thesis: DID QUALITY DROP WE DIDN. AI Agents

Why did quality drop when we didn’t change our prompts

Quality dropped because a pin, tool schema, retrieval corpus, eval set, or traffic mix moved — not because you edited prompts. Isolate, then pin versions.

29 MIN
A path that dead-ends. Thesis: ARTIST MUSICIAN WEBSITES CONVERT WITHOUT. Websites

Artist and Musician Websites That Convert Without Killing the Brand

Artist sites convert when the fold is identity first, then one listen, tour, or contact path — not a streaming dashboard or a gallery with no next step.

22 MIN
Amber node beads on a dark rail. Thesis: MIGRATE ZAPIER N8N WITHOUT BIG. Automation

Migrate Zapier to n8n Without a Big-Bang Cutover

Migrate Zapier to n8n with dual-run, webhook remaps, credential remaps, and a documented rollback. Rebuild by hand — no official importer as of mid-2026.

23 MIN
Nested brass frames. Thesis: DID LOADING ALL MCP TOOLS. AI Agents

Why did loading all my MCP tools blow the context window

Every MCP tool schema you attach is prompt tokens. Loading the whole catalog fills the window before the task starts—send a job-sized subset or a router.

32 MIN
Two clipped paper packets. Thesis: MONITOR AI AGENTS PRODUCTION. AI Agents

How do I monitor AI agents in production

Monitor production agents on traces, tool errors, cost per turn, human rewrite rate, and policy denials — not chatbot thumbs. That is the ops scoreboard.

28 MIN
A cracked amber fuse. Thesis: BIG SHOULD GOLDEN SET BEFORE. AI Agents

How big should my golden set be before soft-launch

Before soft-launch, size the golden set by coverage — happy, auth fail, empty tool, policy deny, money, ambiguous — not a magic N or vanity pass rate.

30 MIN
Amber node beads on a dark rail. Thesis: DEAD LETTER QUEUES AUTOMATIONS WHERE. Automation

Dead Letter Queues for Automations: Where Failed Work Goes to Be Fixed

Park failed n8n work in a dead-letter queue with a replay path. Unbounded retries on a bad payload become vendor rate-limit incidents instead of recovery.

20 MIN
A small stack of coins. Thesis: MOTION SURVIVES PRODUCTION. Websites

Motion That Survives Production

Every award-winning site is fast in the case study and janky on a mid-range Android. Here is what actually holds up once real users arrive.

12 MIN
A single wrench vs a signed blank contract. Thesis: DIY AEO 30 DAYS HIRE. AI Visibility

DIY AEO for 30 Days — Hire When You’re Blind to Your Own Gaps

Yes — DIY Answer Engine Optimization for 30 days with a frozen prompt panel. Hire when you cannot see contradictions or the panel stalls after real fixes.

20 MIN
A scuffed work smartphone with a blank glowing circular button. Thesis: AGENT KEEP CALLING SAME FAILED. AI Agents

Why does my agent keep calling the same failed tool

Your agent retries one failed tool because nothing fingerprints the call or caps same-tool executes. Escalate auth and policy on first hit — do not grind.

25 MIN
A locked drawer. Thesis: WEB DESIGNER DISAPPEARED GET WEBSITE. Websites

My web designer disappeared — how do I get my website back

Take registrar, DNS, host, CMS, repo, then billing. You recover a vanished designer’s site by taking those six doors today — not by waiting for a reply.

27 MIN
A single wrench vs a signed blank contract. Thesis: DIY BUILDERS WIN VALIDATION HIRE. Websites

DIY Builders Win Validation — Hire When the Site Has to Earn Customers

DIY on Squarespace or Wix is right for validation; hire a designer when the site must earn customers, outrun competitors, or stop stealing your nights.

24 MIN

What should I know about this archive page?

What is page 11 of Will's Journal?
Page 11 of Will's Journal is a later slice of the archive, not the hub. The writing is on AI visibility, automation, agents, and websites — from Spurlock Studios.
Where is the first page of Will's Journal?
The first page is the hub at /blog. This URL is a later page of the same journal; previous and next links move through the rest of the archive.
Is this a different journal than the hub?
No. This is the same Will's Journal from Spurlock Studios — page 11 of the archive, after the notes on the first page.