Chris Shennan

The Changelog - February 2026 Streamlining Scaffold’s asset management, trying new marketing workflows, and keeping the momentum going, one small improvement at a time.

My February retrospective is out - tidied up Scaffold, tried a new social tool, and kept the slow-but-steady progress going. #buildinpublic #indiehacker #dev chrisshennan.com/blog/the-cha...

Just curious @bsky.app - Shouldn't the canonical URL of bsky.app/profile/did:... be bsky.app/profile/chri..., or perhaps it should redirect?

Also seeing a similar pattern in the "DID" style post urls i.e. bsky.app/profile/did:...

I'm using merge requests in GitLab as part of my workflow (even though I'm a solo developer), to help keep track of what Scaffold changes I add to my side projects, so I can review & backport them into the main Scaffold repo (github.com/chrisshennan...) #buildinpublic

The Changelog - January 2026 January in a nutshell: Automated Scaffold syncing, scheduled social posts, and small, deliberate steps toward sustainable growth.

I'm trying to get into the habit. I did one for January (chrisshennan.com/blog/the-cha...), although it was a little late, and I am in the midst of writing up the Feb one just now. Despite a note with bullet points I added during the month, it still takes a while to make it coherent.

I'm confused. Building was supposed to be the easy bit (so I'm told), and marketing was the hard bit. How are they achieving marketing/product awareness when it's been drummed into us that heads-down and pumping out new features is the wrong thing?

I agree with the first 2 and am intrigued by the 3rd. I thought all the advice was "talk about what you're doing and put yourself out there, otherwise no one will find you or your products", so how has this manifested into silent builders doing better?

$111k USD seems an odd number as I would have expected it to be rounded to $100k or $120k. What's the significance of $111k?

Thanks, I'll take a look at those. I also came across flatnotes (github.com/dullage/flat...) which looks like it could be a viable self-hosted option too.

I've been tempted by @obsidian.md for a while, but the lack of a web version is a big drawback for me. I'm on a company laptop most of the time, so installing Obsidian on that is a big no-no, but a web version (even self-hosted via Docker) would make it a much more viable option.

Seeing myself mentioned when testing out @skysurge.app is a little surreal

Glad I could help 😆. That update has made a massive difference and the turn around from "issue reported" -> "fix deployed" was very quick 👍

#shamelessplug accepted - I'm on the list!

Currently just using Evernote and my Gitlab commit history but Evernote's not really working for me. My blog is written using markdown and I write my notes in markdown but Evernote converts them to a rich format - so I have to manually apply the markdown again when copying to my blog. Any tips?

I do want to engage in other peoples conversions more often, but again I've found my approach rather scattershot - check my feed once in a while, post a few comments, then AWOL for weeks. I'm not sure how to find the right conversations without being glued to my feed. Any suggestions?

The Changelog - January 2026 January in a nutshell: Automated Scaffold syncing, scheduled social posts, and small, deliberate steps toward sustainable growth.

It's done! "The Changelog" - My first retrospective of 2026. #buildinpublic #indiehacker #dev chrisshennan.com/blog/the-cha...

Trying to pull together my January retrospective blog post (better late than never) and realising I need a much more organised approach to tracking what I've been doing. #buildinpublic

I'm quietly realising all this AI content in my feed is triggering my imposter syndrome. The endless “built my app with [latest AI thing] without coding” posts just seem to make it worse. It’s like we’re handing the imposter the keys. Is it just me?

I can remember those days - just. Those were good days 😄

My hosting is a wee bit higher than I'd like. Going to look at migrating soon - more to bring all my projects is line rather than cost cutting - but hopefully there's a few quid I can reclaim.

My side projects cost £100/month. Now I know my break-even. What's your number? #buildinpublic #indiehacker

Intermittent `pdo_mysql` PHP Extension in Docker: Diagnosis and Fix Learn how to fix intermittent missing pdo_mysql and intl PHP extensions in Docker. Diagnosing with docker exec vs docker run, common volume pitfalls, and the proper solution with copied and…

Ran into random pdo_mysql errors in Docker today. It took some digging, but here’s what caused it and how to resolve it. #docker #mysql chrisshennan.com/blog/intermi...

My shared "scaffold" is copied manually between projects, making it hard to keep everything aligned, but the goal is to make it a proper dependency with clear boundaries and versioning.

A small but added bonus will be the ability to include "this project is running Scaffold v1.7" #buildinpublic

Every time I try to bundle a few “small” features together, they grow arms and legs.

I get more done when each change stands on its own and is seen through to completion, even if it feels trivial.

I should have learned by now that “small” is easier to manage when it’s actually isolated.

Simple, Effective URL management - redr.it Simple & effective URL management for your marketing campaigns and legacy domains

A lot of good quality-of-life updates tonight. The redr.it migration didn't progress as much as I'd like, but Scaffold now has a "first-run" tool which installs and configures the essentials for new projects, and several of the odd workarounds have been fixed.

Simple, Effective URL management - redr.it Simple & effective URL management for your marketing campaigns and legacy domains

It’s a bit of a blue moon here - kids in bed, wife out.

Grabbing a couple of quiet hours to move the redr.it migration along.

Not the most exciting work, but it'll bring me one step closer to a simpler project framework. #buildinpublic

Definitely - and it's double-edged. Anxious in case it flops (nobody wants it/product is bad) but equally anxious in case it succeeds (do I have the time to support it? will the servers be able to handle it?).

Either way, releasing something new brings a whole lot of anxiety.

Not sure, I'd maybe keep it to the first 1 or 2 engagements with the customer. Hopefully, by the time you've closed 2 tickets and done the 2 x check-ins, the customer will have an idea of your response times & approach and feel valued. Beyond that, I think it would feel robotic and inauthentic.

As an indiehacker with multiple projects - automatic filtering into project folders so you can view the ticket as a whole, or by project. And follow up/check in reminders - it'd be a nice touch to be able to reach out a few days later just to "check everything is ok". Make the customer feel valued.

The managed for <$40 would pique my interest (I'm still a little too small for that yet though). If it's aimed at the solo-founder, that might work as they're a different audience/mentality to the ones Zendesk etc are typically focusing on.

I was about to say "definitely", but self-hosted comes with a maintenance overhead that's often under-estimated. 200 a month is too pricey for use with a side project. A self-hosted alternative would be good, provided maintenance burden doesn't take too much time from the projects it's supporting