# Rida Al Barazi

Rida Al Barazi is a software architect, founder, and product builder based in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. He builds software where product decisions, architecture, and operating reality meet, with a current focus on agentic systems that keep state, tools, permissions, evaluation, failure recovery, and human control explicit.

Rida is the founder and principal of [Amidship](https://amidship.com/), works on product and software architecture at Salesforce, and builds [Agentify](https://agentify.ing/), [PDFSight](https://pdfsight.com/), and [BranchBox](https://branchbox.dev/).

This site contains Rida's technical writing, public talks, source code, and lessons from building and operating software. Start with the [writing index](https://rida.me/blog/), [talks](https://rida.me/talks/), or [about page](https://rida.me/about/). Agents should read [llms.txt](https://rida.me/llms.txt) for when-to-use guidance and [developer resources](https://rida.me/developers/) for Markdown and MCP access.

## Current work
- [Amidship](https://amidship.com/): A product and engineering studio for difficult software systems.
- [Agentify](https://runagentify.com/): Application-owned state, tools, knowledge, and human control for AI workflows.
- [PDFSight](https://pdfsight.com/): A document workflow that uses AI to understand forms while deterministic software owns construction and delivery.
- [BranchBox](https://branchbox.dev/): Isolated development runtimes for parallel human and AI work.

## Featured writing
- [Why I finally tried OpenClaw (and how I'm making it safe)](https://rida.me/blog/why-i-finally-tried-openclaw/index.md): I avoided running agents with real access for a year. The unlock wasn't better models or tighter sandboxes. It was giving the agent its own identity.
- [MCP Embedded Resources for Slack: Work Objects, Block Kit, and Silent Failures](https://rida.me/blog/mcp-embedded-resources-slack-work-objects-block-kit/index.md): Building multi-channel AI agents means dealing with APIs that silently fail. Slack returned 200 OK while dropping my Work Objects. Here's what went wrong and the pattern that emerged.
- [Kamal + 1Password + GitHub Actions: Production Deployment Pipeline](https://rida.me/blog/kamal-1password-cicd-deployment/index.md): Set up automated Kamal deployments with 1Password secrets management. The same .kamal/secrets file works for manual deploys and GitHub Actions CI/CD.
- [Fixing DevContainer Build Failures on Debian Trixie](https://rida.me/blog/fixing-devcontainer-build-failures-debian-trixie/index.md): Two quick fixes for cryptic APT hash mismatches and missing moby packages when building devcontainers on Debian Trixie.
- [The Agent Ran My Manual Tests](https://rida.me/blog/the-agent-ran-my-manual-tests/index.md): Give your coding agent a browser and a markdown script. With Playwright MCP, the agent can verify its own work end-to-end—no human clicking required.