Building a Second Brain with Strands Agents, AgentCore Memory, and Bedrock Knowledge Bases

Overview I love markdown because it is frictionless. That is also the problem. Ideas become ideas.md. Then ideas-2.md. Then a folder called poc-notes/. Then a README inside a toy repository. Then a half-written architecture note I forgot existed. After a few months, the information is technically mine but practically lost. What I wanted was not another general-purpose chatbot. I wanted a second brain for my own material — markdown notes, proof-of-concept writeups, architecture sketches, project journals, rough drafts that are still useful even if they are not pretty. ...

December 28, 2025 · 7 min

Your Own Semantic Search Engine for $2/Month: Amazon S3 Vectors

Overview I have accumulated the usual digital junk drawer over the years: manuals for appliances I never remember how to reset notes from talks and courses markdown snippets from side projects receipts and invoices I swear I will organize properly one day little technical writeups saved with filenames like final-v3-real-final.md What I wanted was not full-blown enterprise search. I wanted something much smaller and much more useful: semantic search over my own documents, with a cost profile that does not feel absurd for a personal project. ...

December 8, 2025 · 6 min