Sheldon Lewis

Database systems / infrastructure / engineering notes

Software with real constraints is still the most interesting kind.

I’m Sheldon Lewis, a database systems engineer. For more than a decade, I’ve worked on query execution, storage offload, columnar systems, and in-memory analytical processing. I also build and write about infrastructure, networking, local AI, and practical software systems.

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Recent notes

What I’ve been working through.

The latest problems, decisions, and discoveries from ongoing systems work.

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  1. Latest note · August 29, 2026Codex auto review can get expensiveAuto review is useful safety infrastructure, but it can quietly become a large part of Codex usage when tasks keep crossing protected boundaries.
  2. Recent note · August 22, 2026The cheapest model call is the one you avoidHow deterministic retrieval, reusable semantic context, and smaller models can reserve frontier-model attention for the work that needs it.
  3. Recent note · August 15, 2026A code graph is not repository memoryWhat code graphs can tell an agent, what real repository questions demand, and why useful memory needs a semantic layer.

Selected work

Systems I build, run, and repair.

Projects built around registry maintenance, local model serving, network operations, and self-hosted infrastructure.

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Self-hosted registry operations

Active · Public project

Registry Control Plane

A management layer for Docker Distribution that makes routine access, cleanup, and maintenance work repeatable.

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Registry Control Plane interface showing registry access and daily control surfaces.
The open AMD Strix Halo system showing its heatsink, cabling, motherboard, and NVMe storage.

Active · Experimental

Local AI infrastructure on AMD hardware

A 128 GB AMD Strix Halo system serves as a local lab for model serving, orchestration, retrieval, coding agents, and tool use.

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Opened networking hardware with exposed circuitry and probes attached.

Active · Personal infrastructure

OpenWrt and network systems

OpenWrt provides direct control over reliability, recovery, and network arrangements that consumer router interfaces do not expose.

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Experience

Database systems work at production scale.

More than a decade of database systems work has centered on query execution, storage offload, columnar processing, in-memory analytics, and performance-sensitive paths. That work sits where systems design, correctness, and hardware behavior meet.

10+ years in database systems · Named inventor on 8 issued U.S. patents

  • 01Query execution and optimization
  • 02Storage offload and columnar processing
  • 03Performance, correctness, and reliability

Right now

Updated July 2026

  • Tuning local AI infrastructure on AMD hardware for orchestration, retrieval, coding agents, and tool use.
  • Improving cleanup, access control, and maintenance workflows in Registry Control Plane.
  • Experimenting with OpenWrt networking, recovery paths, and custom network arrangements.

Personal photography

Places, details, and ordinary things that held my attention.

A small record of life away from the screen.

Harbor view with sailboats and colorful hillside buildings.
Two red-and-white mushrooms among red fallen leaves and green shrubs.
Shoreline and turquoise water under a bright sky.
Hairy black-and-orange caterpillar along the edge of a bright green leaf.
Hillside town and distant mountains framed by an oval stone opening.
Cyclist jumping above a crowd on a narrow street lined with buildings.
Rocky beach with people beside blue surf under a wide, streaked sky.
Weathered wooden fishing pier over green-blue water, lined with curved lamp posts.
Rows of orange pedal rail carts lined up on tracks beside two small buildings.
Yellow gondola cabins beneath red and green cable-car machinery.
Crowded boardwalk midway beneath illuminated rides and rows of orange fish prizes.
Painted decorative skulls and ceramic vessels arranged across a crowded table.
Dark chocolate package in a red dish beside an illuminated mechanical keyboard.
Three small boats with canopy roofs and flags floating near a stone pier.
Rounded boulders in a grassy valley beneath pine-covered mountains.
Airplane wing silhouetted above scattered city lights at sunset.

The Carenage · St. George’s, Grenada

A red sailboat crosses St. George’s inner harbor.

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