Alan Pope
Staff Software Engineer at Chainguard. Podcaster. Open Source Enthusiast.
Projects
Below are some things I've created recently. Most have a public website, a repo on GitHub, and some link to a podcast episode where I talked about them.
-
Metrics for snaps I maintain. This includes number of devices each snap has been installed on and aggregated data about the OS releases, country, architecture, and channels in use.
-
Like "Snap Updates", below, this is an alternative view showing flatpak updates and new applications in Flathub, as they appear.
-
An attempt to aggregate links to machines certified to run Linux, or sold with Linux.
-
A dashboard to help me keep on top of which snap packages I maintain. It checks upstream repos for new releases, and highlights when snaps are outdated, need testing, or require no updates.
-
An alternative to the official Snapcraft store website, showing snap package versions and update status.
-
Run AI coding agents in sandboxed LXD containers
-
A pager like less/more, but with controllable output speed. Pipe command output through slomore and set lines-per-second or seconds-per-line — ideal for making screencasts or demo videos.
-
An interactive terminal frontend for viewing Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) files in various formats.
-
Generate a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) from virtual machine disk images, without booting the VM.
-
A "Tinder for Git(Hub)" app/site. Designed to connect (new and existing) developers to issues in projects that are looking for 'help needed' on a 'good first issue'.
-
My semi-regular email newsletter.
-
Sometimes I live stream while doing a bit of open source maintenance. If you subscribe to the channels then maybe you'll find out when that is.
-
A fun but usable emoji-only city walking navigation app. I made this for a silly vibecoding contest. This got me through round 1, and actually works.
-
A tool for scanning Linux Snap packages for vulnerabilities. Another development that originated in a vibecoding contest.
-
Reboot of a decade-old and abaondoned website of the same name. Use it to find somewhere nerdy and interesting to go nearby. Also, please submit new places.
-
Grype vulnerability report viewer written in Python, and using the Textual TUI framework. I created it to try out the library after seeing it in use at my previous employer, Anchore.
-
I wanted to understand how to make an MCP server, and had a good use case. Grype MCP can be used with your favourite AI agent (Claude, Cursor, Copilot etc) to check your projects for security vulnerabilities. It's written in Python, and worked for me.
-
I built and maintain a bunch of Snap packages in the Canonical Snap store. Much of the work is thankfully automated, but sometimes a human needs to enter the coding fray.
-
New music discovery service built using the Spotipy Python library at the backend, and some unfamilar web technology for user-facing stuff. Currently in limited closed beta.