Cygan Labs
Practical computing for real life.
A practical home for self-hosting, systems, AI, useful tools, projects, and media-server fixes, written for people who want technology to be understandable and useful.
Start with what you need
Cygan Labs is organized by practical lanes. Pick the area closest to what you are trying to understand, fix, or build.
Projects
Public builds, utilities, experiments, and infrastructure pieces, including DriftLoom, SimpleQR, ShittyQR, Plex Requests, CyberChef, and more.
Self-Hosting
Field-guide pages for getting started, maintenance, remote access, backups, media stacks, monitoring, and sensible defaults.
Tools
Small workbench utilities like Link Cleaner, Markdown Cleaner, Heading Outline Checker, SimpleQR, ShittyQR, and hosted helpers that solve one clear problem at a time.
Fast starts: Link Cleaner, Markdown Cleaner, and Heading Outline Checker.
AI & Agents
Grounded writing on AI tools, schools and organizations, agent systems, permissions, local AI, and workflow reality checks.
Systems & Ops
Reliability, monitoring, access boundaries, operations judgment, and the habits that keep systems understandable over time.
Plex Help
Blurry video, buffering, remote streaming, quality settings, and device-specific Plex fixes for common playback problems.
Device guides: Chromecast, Samsung TV, Android TV / Google TV, and Roku.
Latest writing
- AI Agents Need Change Control, Not Bigger PromptsStop trying to make AI agents safe with longer prompts. If an agent can use tools, edit files, call APIs, or send messages, it needs the same boring controls we expect from production systems: scoped permissions, visible tools, approval gates, logs, rollback paths, and change windows.
- How to Build a Foundry-Style AI Security HarnessCisco’s Foundry Security Spec is not a scanner. It is a blueprint for turning AI bug hunting into a bounded, evidence-gated security evaluation system. Here is what a practical harness around it would actually need.
- The Perfect 10 Problem: What Recent Linux and Windows CVEs Are Really Telling UsRecent critical Linux and Windows vulnerabilities show why old protocols, update systems, identity services, and management planes have become primary attack surfaces.