Antisuyu · the jungle road
A flat road through the lowland forest, west to east, beside a wide brown river. You arrive through a stone punku from the Qhapaq Ñan; the stops of the road stand on either side, and at the end the road climbs onto the canopy bridges, passes a macaw clay lick and ends at a kené totem.
1. Antisuyu gateway
You walk through a stone punku, a mossy trapezoidal Inca doorway, into the jungle. Behind you, the same punku takes you back to the Qhapaq Ñan. You arrive dressed as an explorer: wide-brim hat, polo shirt, shorts and boots. At the edge of the plaza a saddled mule with saddlebags waits: “E · Ride the mule” gets you on and you travel faster; “E · Dismount” or Esc leaves you wherever you are. The mule is for the road: the stops are visited on foot. If you leave the road toward a stop, step onto a pier, a boardwalk or a raft, or reach the canopy bridges, you get off and the mule waits for you at the roadside.
2. Trader's boat · What I use
A regatón's boat, the river trader: a long peke-peke motor canoe with a palm-thatched cabin, moored at a dock. On the dock his wares are laid out on stalls: the tools I work with, grouped as on the “Uses” page. Each stall opens its list. From the balsa jetty at the foot of the stairs a plank leads aboard: you can walk under the cabin, where the wares can be browsed too. The boat stays moored.
How I work with AI agents
From a traditional SDLC to an AIDLC (AI-Driven Development Lifecycle): an orchestrator agent hands work to specialists by phase; I set the goal and review the results.
Orchestrator
- tech-lead: My orchestrator agent: takes the goal, breaks it down and hands the work to the specialist agents.
Define
- spec-writer: Specs and acceptance criteria.
- business-doc: Business documentation.
Design
- architect: Architecture and technical decisions.
- planner: Step-by-step implementation plan.
Build
- tdd-guide: Tests first.
- backend-engineer: Implementation.
Verify
- code-reviewer: Code review.
- security-reviewer: Security review.
- qa-engineer: Quality and end-to-end testing.
Document
- doc-updater: Keeps the docs up to date.
Agents, orchestration and skills
- Claude Code: My main agent to write, review and verify code.
- Codex: Parallel tasks and a second opinion.
- OpenCode: Another coding agent in the terminal.
- Orca: Orchestrating agents in parallel.
- Herdr: Agent orchestration, mainly.
- AI Hero skills: Reusable skills for the agents.
- caveman: Short, direct answers: fewer tokens, same substance.
- ponytail: The simplest solution that works. YAGNI first.
- impeccable: Interface design skill.
- archify: Interactive architecture diagrams.
- RTK: Cuts the tokens command output consumes.
- ccusage: To see agent usage and cost.
What this site is built with
Built with agents working in parallel, each with its own contract and files, and verified with tests, screenshots and Lighthouse.
- Astro: Static site, MDX content.
- Three.js: The khipu, the arcade and the 3D world.
- Bun: Install, scripts and tests.
- TypeScript: All the code.
- Biome: Format and lint.
- Playwright: End-to-end tests and screenshots.
- Lighthouse CI: Core Web Vitals on every PR and in production.
- GitHub Actions + Pages: CI and deploys.
- Umami: Cookieless analytics.
- Web Audio: Music and sounds generated in the browser.
Editor, terminal and gear
- Zed: Fast editor for everyday work.
- Cursor: Editor with built-in AI.
- Ghostty: My terminal.
- MacBook Pro M5 Pro: My work machine.
Professional stack
What I use at work, by area.
Languages
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Python
- Go
- Rust
- Kotlin
- Java
- .NET
Cloud
- AWS
- GCP
- Azure
- Kubernetes
- Karpenter
- Terraform
- Pulumi
- Helm
Platform
- Kong
- Kafka
- ArgoCD
- GitHub Actions
- Grafana
- Prometheus
- Loki
- Tempo
Architecture
- Microservices
- Serverless
- EDA
- Micro frontends
- MACH
- C4
Data
- Postgres
- DynamoDB
- Redis
- MongoDB
- Redshift
- OpenSearch
3. Story maloca · Blog
A round maloca, the communal house, with a conical palm-thatched roof, benches around a fire and, hanging on the wall, painted bark cloths (llanchama): one per article, the 2 newest first. The achiote-red ones are from the site's blog; the huito-black ones, from Medium. Inside, an aisle between the benches and the wall goes all the way round; in front of each cloth, “E · Read” opens that article.
- This site is a khipu · · site blog
Why I told my career with cords and knots, and how it's built: Astro, Three.js, rope physics and an arcade made with agents. - Serverless web applications · · site blog
Third-party services, client-side logic and functions as a service: what you gain and what you pay with a serverless web app.
4. Canoe landing
A wooden pier and a stair down the bank to a floating balsa jetty, where a dugout canoe carved from a single trunk waits with its paddle. On the jetty, “E · Board the canoe” seats you in it and you control the paddle across the whole river. Forward accelerates, back brakes and reverses, and sideways turns, with inertia and a gentle eastward current. Use WASD, arrows or joystick; run gives a boost. Near either dock at low speed, “E · Get off here” or Esc lands you on the jetty. Reaching the other dock earns a stamp.
5. Project stilt houses
A row of stilt houses on the riverbank, joined by plank boardwalks, with the canoe dock in the middle. Each house is a project from the projects page and has a carved sign: the case studies first, then the most-starred GitHub repositories.
Case studies
API Gateway & API Platform
One central contract for all service-to-service traffic. I built it four times, in four different contexts.
- 2016 · Belcorp · Solutions Architect: Omnichannel Kong with a Lua plugin.
- 2021 · Auna · Principal Architect: AWS API Gateway, migrated off IBM.
- 2022 · Auna · Senior Engineering Manager: Kong at 99.9% SLA.
- 2022 · Xepelin · Engineering Manager: Internal, external and public API Platform.
- 2026 · Globant · Tech Manager: API exposure governance into the cluster.
Multi-brand Design System
Components shared across brands, driven by design tokens.
- 2016 · Belcorp · Solutions Architect: Multi-brand Stencil.
- 2021 · Auna · Principal Architect: Tokens + web components in a monorepo.
- 2022 · Auna · Senior Engineering Manager: Design System POD.
Event-driven architecture
Events as the contract between domains, with a catalog and shared libraries.
- 2016 · Belcorp · Solutions Architect: MCBA + EDA library on EventBridge.
- 2021 · Auna · Principal Architect: Analytics on Kinesis.
- 2022 · Xepelin · Engineering Manager: Kafka with an event catalog.
- 2024 · TopSort · Infra Lead: Kafka, SQS and EventBridge on the multi-region platform.
Platform engineering & DevOps
The path from commit to production: from mobile Jenkins to multi-region GitOps.
- 2016 · Belcorp · Solutions Architect: Mobile DevOps with Jenkins.
- 2021 · Auna · Principal Architect: SonarCloud, Nexus, EKS runners.
- 2022 · Xepelin · Engineering Manager: GitHub Actions and Pulumi as the standard.
- 2024 · TopSort · Infra Lead: ArgoCD GitOps, 30–40% cheaper.
- 2026 · Globant · Tech Manager: GitOps and observability gap analysis.
AI in the delivery cycle
From data analytics to AI-assisted development across every team.
- 2020 · Auna · Solutions Architect: Biometrics with Python.
- 2022 · Xepelin · Engineering Manager: Development accelerated with Claude Code and ChatGPT.
- 2023 · U. Complutense · Master's in Big Data, Data Science & AI: AI master's degree.
- 2026 · Globant · Tech Manager: AI-automated SDLC.
GitHub repositories
- node-microservices-template · TypeScript · 11 stars
Node Microservices Template using Driven Design Domain (DDD), CQRS and Event Sourcing - eslint-report-action · TypeScript · 5 stars
A Github Action that convert ESLint report to markdown - node-api-template-koa · JavaScript · 4 stars
Node Microservices Template using Koa and Modular Pattern
Past the stilt houses, on the way to the arcade, someone left odd prints in the mud: a bare foot and, beside it, a hoof. They cross the road and slip into the forest. They say you shouldn't follow strangers' footprints… but whoever does finds someone small who chats for a moment and vanishes.
6. Floating arcade
A floating house on balsa logs, in an oxbow pond beside the road, with a palm roof and arcade cabinets. A railed boardwalk leads from the plaza onto the raft. At each cabinet, “E · Play” opens the real game right there, as in the mountain's arcade tambo. By day and into the evening, young people from the community play at the end cabinets, with a child watching over a shoulder who jumps when someone wins; by day, a girl watches leaning on the rail (not on low quality or on phones). Late at night one or two play on. The three middle cabinets are always free, and if you head for an occupied one, the player steps aside until you leave.
- Data Snake: A stream of light that eats packets.
- Monolith Breaker: Break the monolith into microservices.
- Request Invaders: You are the WAF. Here comes the DDoS.
- Incident Commander: You have seconds. Choose well.
- Keep the Service Alive: Target: 99.99% uptime.
7. Canopy bridges
Past the arcade, the road leaves the ground and climbs onto a walkway of hanging bridges between ceiba trees, at canopy height. Beside three ceibas the railing opens onto a plank platform that rings the trunk and that you can walk around. Crossing it end to end without getting off gives a stamp; stepping onto the platforms does not break it.
8. Macaw clay lick
Near the end of the road: a wooden viewpoint with a bench, facing a collpa across the river, a reddish clay cliff where macaws come to eat the earth. You can sit on the bench (E key) to watch the collpa; moving, jumping or pressing E or Esc stands you up.
Clay lick viewpoint — the road ends at the kené totem.
9. Kené totem · end of the Antisuyu
Where the road ends, a few steps past the collpa, a clearing of packed earth holds a kené totem: a tall carved wooden pole painted with kené, the line designs of the Shipibo-Konibo people, which in their tradition come from the skin of Ronin, the great anaconda. Ronin, achiote red with black kené, coils up the pole to a crown of macaw feathers. Around it stand painted jars and six poles with feathers and kené streamers, and a sign: “End of the Antisuyu”. There are people in the clearing: two Shipibo-Konibo women sitting by a cotton cloth spread on a mat, painting kené on it (half of it is done), and two travelers resting on a log with their baskets and a bunch of bananas, by a hearth. By day (not on low quality or on phones), two children also play a clapping game while an elder watches from a small stool. At night the women, the children and the elder leave; the travelers stay by the lit hearth. At night the kené lines glow faintly. It is a tribute to Shipibo-Konibo art, made only of geometry and procedural drawing.
The first time you reach the totem in a visit, a short tune plays (with sound on), flower petals and blue morpho butterflies burst from the crown (not if your system asks for reduced motion) and the kené lines glow for a moment. Then the “You made it!” panel opens, with your traveler name if you set one: up to three numbers from the road (tools on the trader's boat, stories in the maloca, projects in the stilt houses or games in the arcade, whichever have data) and your Antisuyu stamps, and buttons to make your postcard, book 60 minutes, download the resume, go back to the Qhapaq Ñan or back to the site. Next to the totem, the E key opens it again.
10. The river community
A riverside community, inspired by the Shipibo-Konibo and Asháninka peoples, lives along the road. By day, children play ball and tag on the stilt-house plaza and scamper off giggling if you come close. Others jump into the river from a stranded log on the sandbar across from the canoe landing and swim back to the sand. By the maloca, one woman weaves on a backstrap loom and another paints kené on her pots, with an elder in a feather crown sitting beside them. Travelers come and go along the road, both ways and over long stretches: couples with banana bunches and baskets, a mother with her child, a man on his own and, on high quality, more couples and two young men; they step aside to let you pass, and between the punku and the canopy bridges someone always turns up further ahead or behind. Off the trader's boat, a fisherman throws his cast net from a dugout, and now and then a peque-peque motor canoe passes downriver. At nightfall most go home: by the maloca only the elder stays on, by a small fire (so do the arcade's night owls and the travelers at the kené totem). Near the adults (except at the arcade), “E · Greet” shows a short greeting.
11. Jungle wildlife
Macaws and parrots Ara macao · Ara ararauna · Ara chloropterus · Ara severus · Amazona farinosa · Pionus menstruus · Aratinga weddellii · Psittacara leucophthalmus
- Where
- High overhead, crossing the river and the road; in pairs on two dead emergent trees above the forest (between the canoe landing and the stilt houses, and past the canopy bridges); and at the collpa, the clay wall across the river from the lookout at the end of the road.
- When
- By day. The collpa is full all morning (roughly 6 to 11 am) and still busy through the afternoon; at night it is empty.
- What it does
- Scarlet and blue-and-yellow macaws: pairs and small flocks, partners wingtip to wingtip, cross high overhead every half minute or so. On the dead trees they preen each other and turn their heads to watch you, and take off if you pass right by the trunk. The collpa fills with a mixed flock: scarlet, blue-and-yellow, red-and-green and chestnut-fronted macaws in pairs, mealy amazons in pairs, and tight little flocks of blue-headed parrots and of dusky-headed and white-eyed parakeets. They keep arriving over the cliff top or along the river, swoop down over the water and land on the clay; they bite the earth, look around, hop along the wall with a flutter, squabble with a neighbour and, after a while, leave with their partner or flock. Some perch on the green lip at the top or on the fallen clay by the water, and there are always pairs circling over the river. Every minute or two the whole flock panics, wheels out over the river and comes back to the wall. At night they sleep on the dead trees.
- Stamp
- Scarlet macaw
Squirrel monkey Saimiri sciureus
- Where
- In a row of trees at the road edge between the canoe landing and the stilt houses; on high quality, another troop between the trader's boat and the maloca.
- When
- By day; at night they sleep huddled together in one tree.
- What it does
- The troop travels along the row of trees, leaping from branch to branch and tree to tree with arms stretched out. Between leaps they sit up with the long black-tipped tail hanging, look around in quick jerks and stare at you. Stop under their tree and they move off toward the other end of the row.
- Stamp
- Squirrel monkey
Red howler monkey Alouatta seniculus
- Where
- On high quality, at the top of the tallest tree in the squirrel monkeys' row.
- When
- Always up in its tree; it roars at dawn and at dusk.
- What it does
- It sits still, looking around, or at you when you pass close by. At dawn and dusk it throws its head back in the long roar the howlers are named for.
Three-toed sloth Bradypus variegatus
- Where
- Hanging under a limb of a cecropia (cetico): one beside the road between the trader's boat and the maloca, one beside the canopy bridges at the height of the walkway; on high quality, a third past the stilt houses.
- When
- Day and night.
- What it does
- It creeps upside down along its limb, hand over hand, a few centimetres a second, then hangs still for a long while. Stop nearby and it turns its head toward you, very slowly.
- Stamp
- Sloth
Pink river dolphin Inia geoffrensis
- Where
- In the river: along the canoe route between the canoe landing and the stilt houses, off the trader's boat and, on high quality, below the collpa.
- When
- Day and night.
- What it does
- Mostly hidden in the brown water; every few seconds one surfaces in a slow arc —the pink back and its low hump—, leaves a ring on the water and dives with a flick of the flukes. When you paddle the canoe, the nearest pod comes over and surfaces around you more often.
- Stamp
- Pink river dolphin
Black caiman Melanosuchus niger
- Where
- In the calm water along the road-side bank (by the canoe route and, on high quality, off the maloca and the collpa) and basking on the sandbars the capybaras do not use.
- When
- By day it floats or basks on the sand; at dusk it goes back into the water, and at night its eyes shine orange-red.
- What it does
- Floating, only the eyes, the nostrils and the line of back scutes show; it turns and drifts very slowly. On the sand it lies flat, snout raised. Come close (about 8 m, more if you run or paddle at it) and it slides into the water or slips under with a ring, surfacing near its spot again once you have gone. It never comes toward you.
- Stamp
- Black caiman
Capybara Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris
- Where
- On the river's sandbars off the canoe landing and off the stilt houses (and off the trader's boat on high quality).
- When
- They graze by day; at night they rest more, lying on the sand.
- What it does
- A family —a big male, females and pups close to their mothers— grazes on the sand and lies down now and then. They raise their heads to watch you; come close (about 9 m, 13 if you run; from the canoe) and they freeze for a moment, then walk into the river on the far side of the bar: they swim with only backs and heads out, and climb back onto the sand once you are gone.
- Stamp
- Capybara
Great egret Ardea alba
- Where
- On the wet rim of the same sandbars as the capybaras.
- When
- By day; at night they roost away.
- What it does
- It stalks the shallows: slow steps, a freeze, a stab at a fish (a ring is left on the water). Come close, or let the capybaras plunge in, and it flies off low over the river to another sandbar.
White-throated toucan Ramphastos tucanus
- Where
- In a few fruiting trees beside the road past the maloca; on high quality, another group between the stilt houses and the arcade.
- When
- By day; at night they sleep still, head turned back over the shoulder.
- What it does
- They hop sideways along the limbs, reach for a fruit with the huge bill and toss it back with a flick of the head, and cock their heads to look at you. Now and then one flies to the next tree: a few quick wingbeats and a glide, dipping and rising. Pass right under them (about 5 m, 8 if you run) and they move to another tree.
- Stamp
- Toucan
Otorongo (jaguar) Panthera onca
- Where
- Crossing the road well ahead of you, away from the stations and the canopy bridges; or walking a sandbar of the river, seen from a landing or the canoe.
- When
- Only at night, and rare: the first one usually shows after a minute or so of walking at night; after that, every minute or two until you have its stamp, then only every few minutes.
- What it does
- It steps out of the forest and crosses the road; in the middle it stops to look at you —eyes shining green-gold— for a couple of seconds, then trots on and is gone into the forest. On a sandbar it walks the length of it, stops to look at you and slips into the river at the end. Come within about 10 m and it turns away at once. It never attacks or approaches.
- Stamp
- Otorongo · jaguar
Collared peccary Pecari tajacu
- Where
- Crossing the road ahead of you, on quiet stretches away from the stations and the canopy bridges.
- When
- By day and in the half-light of dawn and dusk, not in deep night. The first herd usually crosses after about 20 seconds of walking the road; after that, every minute or so, and less often once you have its stamp.
- What it does
- A small herd (seven, two of them young, on high quality; four otherwise) steps out of the forest some 25 to 35 m ahead and crosses in single file: the leader picks the way and the rest tread in its tracks. They trot along snuffling, heads low, and now and then the leader stops to root at the verge and the file bunches up behind it; on the far side they melt into the forest. Run at them (within about 16 m) or walk up to about 6 m and the file breaks: each one bolts at a gallop for whichever side of the road is nearer.
- Stamp
- Collared peccary
Agouti Dasyprocta sp.
- Where
- Darting across the road a few metres ahead of you (on high quality, sometimes two at once), on quiet stretches away from the stations.
- When
- By day.
- What it does
- It bursts out of the forest in a sprint, stops dead on the road or at its verge and sits up on its haunches to look at you; then it is off like a shot, usually on across the road and sometimes back the way it came, with a swerve in its run. Some carry a seed in the mouth and stay a moment to gnaw it. Come within about 5 m (8 if you run) and it flees at once, away from you.
- Stamp
- Agouti
Yellow-spotted river turtle Podocnemis unifilis
- Where
- On fallen logs at the foot of the road-side bank: one a little downstream of the canoe landing (in view from its pier) and one on the canoe route; on high quality, another on the route, one past the stilt houses and one by the trader's boat.
- When
- By day they bask on the log; at dusk they slip into the river one by one, and at night they only come up now and then.
- What it does
- A row of turtles (five on high quality; three otherwise) sprawled in the sun, legs stretched back and heads up, showing their yellow spots. Come close (about 10 m; 14 if you run or paddle) and they slide into the water one by one, nearest first, each with a plop and a ring. A while after you have gone, heads and shells come up beside the log, drift a moment and climb back on, one at a time.
- Stamp
- River turtle
Sachavaca (lowland tapir) Tapirus terrestris
- Where
- On the sandbar along the road-side bank on the canoe route, between the canoe landing and the stilt houses; on high quality, also on the sandbar across the river a little upstream of the trader's boat.
- When
- From dusk (around 5 pm) until a little after sunrise; by day it rests in the forest.
- What it does
- It steps out of the bank vegetation onto the sand and ambles over it, nosing the ground with its short trunk; it drinks at the water's edge and now and then wades in belly-deep and stands soaking. Come close (about 9 m; 13 if you run or paddle) and it trots into the river and swims off with only its back and head showing, coming back once you have been away a while. At dawn it walks back into the forest.
- Stamp
- Sachavaca · tapir
Shansho (hoatzin) Opisthocomus hoazin
- Where
- In the thickets leaning out over the water on the road-side bank: one by the canoe landing's pier, downstream, and one on the canoe route; on high quality, another on the route and one upstream of the trader's boat.
- When
- By day; at night they roost still in the branches, heads sunk into their shoulders.
- What it does
- A group (five on high quality; three otherwise) of big, heavy birds with blue faces, red eyes and a ragged crest. They turn their heads, preen and sun themselves with wings held half open; every so often one changes branch in a short, clumsy flutter (they fly poorly). Come close (about 10 m; 14 if you run or paddle) and they get agitated, stretch their necks and flap up to the branches farthest from you until you leave.
- Stamp
- Shansho · hoatzin
Blue morpho Morpho menelaus
- Where
- Fluttering over the road, a little ahead of you.
- When
- By day, in the brightest hours (roughly 8 am to 4 pm).
- What it does
- Erratic flight at head height; every wingbeat flashes the electric blue upper side and the brown, eye-spotted underside. They veer off if you walk into them.
Fireflies Lampyridae
- Where
- Over the undergrowth on both sides of the road, all around you.
- When
- At night.
- What it does
- Greenish blinks drifting slowly, each on its own rhythm.
Poison dart frogs Dendrobatidae
- Where
- On broad leaves at the edge of the road.
- When
- Day and night.
- What it does
- Tiny frogs in bright colours (red, yellow, blue, lime, orange) with pulsing throats. Brush past their leaf and they hop off and are gone.
Leafcutter ants Atta sp.
- Where
- Crossing the road on a few quiet stretches, away from the stations.
- When
- Day and night.
- What it does
- A column of ants carries green leaf bits (and the odd pink petal) across the road one way, while others come back empty the other way.
12. Back to the mountain
The paper map opens with M (or the gamepad's Y button). Fast travel between stops unlocks once you reach the collpa, near the end of the road.
From any world, the “Travel” button at the top (the V key, or the gamepad's LT trigger) opens a small map of the Tawantinsuyu with every world: Qusqu in the centre and each road in its direction. Pick one and, once you confirm you want to leave, you travel straight there; the ones you've visited (any stamp in your passport) carry a ✓ and the world you are in shows as “You are here”.
The stone punku at the start of the road takes you back to the mountain.