From Motion Planning to Agent Tooling: Why I’m Writing on DEV

Ariel Anders — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:49:48 +0000

Hi DEV community!
I’m Ari - a roboticist and senior software engineer based in San Francisco. My background has spent a lot of time living at the intersection of complex physical systems and developer infrastructure: autonomous navigation, motion planning, ROS, and building reliable platforms for physical robots.

Recently, a lot of my engineering cycles have shifted toward another fast-evolving frontier: agentic workflows, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and developer tooling.

Robotics and agentic AI have surprisingly deep parallels. Both deal with non-deterministic environments, real-time decision-making, latency budgets, tool execution, and the eternal challenge of state management. Building robust agent infrastructure feels a lot like writing controller loops: you need clean interfaces, rapid feedback loops, and bulletproof observability.

What I’m Currently Hacking On

Custom MCP Servers: Exploring how standardizing agent-tool interfaces can streamline real-world developer workflows.
Local Model Workflows: Running and benchmarking lightweight LLMs locally using Ollama on Linux hardware.
Logistics & Schedule Parsers: Turning messy, multi-track real-world convention schedules into structured, queryable data using multi-agent systems.
Full-Stack Tooling: Building fast, clean frontends and automated pipelines with TypeScript, React, Vite, Docker, and GitHub Actions.

What You Can Expect Here

I’m using this space to document practical technical experiments, architectural breakdowns, and lessons learned from the field:

Hands-on guides to building, testing, and deploying custom MCP servers.
System architecture notes comparing robotics control loops to LLM agent orchestration.
Practical CI/CD and automation patterns for indie technical projects.
Occasional musings on human movement mechanics and improvisational systems (I'm an avid West Coast Swing dancer and improv comedy nerd off-duty).

You can check out my broader robotics research, past publications, and engineering background on my portfolio at arii.github.io, and follow my lifestyle and community software experiments at boomtick.blog.

Say Hello!

I'd love to connect with folks building in the robotics space, experimenting with MCP, or optimizing local-first agent setups.

What are you hacking on this week? Drop a comment below or say hi!

Hello Dev Community: Introducing BoomTick

Ariel Anders — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 16:45:12 +0000

Every creative project has a rhythm. In software, it might be the hum of a CI/CD pipeline or the tight feedback loop of local development. In partner dancing, it's the foundational pulse of the music—the "Boom... Tick" that sets the timing, anchors the connection, and lets two people improvise seamlessly in real time.

BoomTick started at that exact intersection: the physical dynamics of West Coast Swing and the systems architecture of modern software engineering.

What is BoomTick?

At its core, BoomTick is an independent creative platform and lifestyle lab. It explores what happens when you apply real engineering rigor, developer tooling, and automated workflows to real-world community culture, travel logistics, and movement mechanics.

Here is what we focus on:

Event Logistics & Tooling: Weekend conventions involve hundreds of dancers, multi-track workshop schedules, competitions, and shifting hotel ballrooms. We build developer tools, AI schedule parsers, and custom workflows to cut through the logistical noise.
Developer Experiments & Agent Architecture: We actively experiment with open-source developer tooling, custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, local model orchestration, and automated CI/CD pipelines to streamline creative publishing.
Movement & Gear Breakdown: Just as we care about clean code architecture, we care about the physical fundamentals—from timing analysis and footwear mechanics (like DIY suede shoe soles) to travel gear that survives four days of non-stop social dancing.
Apparel & Community Identity: Minimalist, community-driven streetwear designed for dancers, movers, and makers.

Why Write on DEV?

Software is at its best when it solves real, tactile problems outside the IDE. We are using this space to document the technical side of the ecosystem:

Building and optimizing custom MCP servers for creative workflows.
Applying motion planning and robotics principles to human movement and social dance analysis.
Lessons learned parsing messy, unstructured event data into structured schedules.
Pragmatic automation stacks using TypeScript, Python, Vite, Docker, and GitHub Actions.

Whether you're here for the architecture breakdowns, open-source experiments, or just curious how partner dancing connects to software design, welcome to the floor.

Check out the full platform at boomtick.blog.

What niche real-world hobbies or subcultures are you building software tools for? Drop a comment below—we'd love to hear what you're hacking on.

DEV Community: Ariel Anders

From Motion Planning to Agent Tooling: Why I’m Writing on DEV

Hello Dev Community: Introducing BoomTick