About

I'm Branden Garrett. I build for the web, and I've done it for 15 years. I live in Muskegon, Michigan.

The Work

By day I'm an engineer at Mighty in the Midwest. We build websites and web apps for clients, and I'm deep in Craft CMS and Payload: content models, integrations, and the parts of a build that decide whether a site is still easy to change three years later.

A lot of my job is investigating and debugging. That's the work that never shows up in a commit log.

How I Work Now

I run a lot of my work through AI agents. One keeps my task queue and research notes, drafts with me, and handles the busywork. I make the calls. When something it builds doesn't hold up, that goes in the notes too.

This site is part of that. It runs on Payload and Next.js, and most of what's here started as a question I wanted answered for myself.

What I’m Writing About

• Building with AI agents: the real setup, what works, what doesn't.
• Dev craft: Craft CMS, Payload, and the trade.
• The small tools and settings that make the day faster.
• Tech and business in the Midwest.

Start with the writing, see what I use, or browse my bookshelf.