Agents become truly useful when they stop just reasoning and start acting - interacting with real systems like market data feeds, financial news sources, and internal databases. This shift happens through three key integration patterns: external APIs for real-time data, web search for unstructured information, and database connections for structured internal data. Mastering these patterns transforms agents from conversational tools into operational financial systems.
Connecting Agents to the World - External APIs and Data
An agent that can only process text is fundamentally limited. Real usefulness comes from connecting to external systems - fetching live data, querying databases, calling APIs, and triggering actions in the real world. In this post, I’ll explore how to build these connections, turning isolated language models into integrated systems that can actually get things done.
Securing Go APIs: OWASP Best Practices
Security isn’t an afterthought - it’s a fundamental requirement for any production API. This post covers the OWASP API Security Top 10 vulnerabilities and practical Go implementations to protect your applications.
Authorization Patterns: RBAC and ABAC in Go
After authentication confirms user identity, authorization determines what they can access. This post covers two powerful authorization models: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), with practical Go implementations.
JWT Authentication in Go
Authentication verifies who users are, while authorization determines what they can access. This post covers implementing JWT (JSON Web Token) authentication in Go - the most common approach for stateless API authentication.
Scaling Go APIs: Pagination, Caching, and Rate Limiting
As your API grows, handling thousands of records and requests requires thoughtful scaling strategies. This post covers essential techniques for scaling Go APIs: pagination for large datasets, caching for performance, filtering and sorting for flexibility, and rate limiting for protection.
Go Middleware and Concurrency Patterns
Middleware and concurrency are two powerful features that make Go excellent for backend development. Middleware enables cross-cutting concerns like logging and authentication, while Go’s goroutines and channels provide elegant solutions for concurrent processing. This post explores both patterns in depth.
Building REST APIs with Go and Gin
Gin is Go’s most popular web framework, offering a martini-like API with up to 40x better performance. This post covers building production-ready REST APIs with Gin, from basic routing to data validation and CRUD operations.