# Kyoto Tech Meetup: 2025 wrap-up

[Canonical article](https://www.ashryan.io/writing/kyoto-tech-meetup-2025-wrap-up/)

Published: 2025-12-23

Recapping what the Kyoto Tech Meetup has been up to in 2025.

![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1481097618128-d40d460be582?crop=entropy\&cs=tinysrgb\&fit=max\&fm=jpg\&ixid=M3wxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDIwfHxjb2ZmZWUlMjBjaHJpc3RtYXN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzY2NDU3NzQxfDA\&ixlib=rb-4.1.0\&q=80\&w=2000)

Photo by [Alisa Anton](https://unsplash.com/@alisaanton?utm_source=ghost\&utm_medium=referral\&utm_campaign=api-credit) / [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost\&utm_medium=referral\&utm_campaign=api-credit)

Today was our last Kyoto Tech Meetup event of the year!

As a quick recap, our first meetup was in September, and since then we’ve done 8 events:

- 6 **Morning Tech & Coffee**sessions
- 2 **Community Hack Days**

I want to say a massive thanks to everyone in the group. My original intent was to do 3–4 coffee sessions this year to see how things went. But the community nudged me to go ahead and start the Hack Days this year and make the coffee meetups weekly instead of monthly.

In terms of results, so far we’ve seen:

- At least 1 person find a job through the meetup
- At least 1 person go from “non-developer” status to shipping a web app
- An [official website for Kyoto Tech Meetup](https://kyoto-tech.github.io/?ref=ashryan.io) with multiple updates
- A partnership with FabCafe Kyoto to provide space for our Hack Days
- … and a ton of info sharing, projects built, and friendships created

I’m really happy with such an exciting start and I look forward to what we’ll do together in 2026!

## Dec 23 coffee session wrap-up

For today’s session, here were some of the things we discussed.

### Browser Automation & Scraping

- **Puppeteer** [https://pptr.dev/](https://pptr.dev/?ref=ashryan.io) Headless Chrome automation for scraping, testing, and screenshots.
- **Playwright** [https://playwright.dev/](https://playwright.dev/?ref=ashryan.io) Cross-browser automation (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit) with strong testing and scraping support. I used this for the screenshot tool mentioned below.

### Deer & Monkey Stuff in Japan

- **Nara (deer)** [https://www.visitnara.jp/destinations/area/nara-park/](https://www.visitnara.jp/destinations/area/nara-park/?ref=ashryan.io) Famous free-roaming deer in Nara Park.
- **Arashiyama (monkeys)** [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3912.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3912.html?ref=ashryan.io) Iwatayama Monkey Park overlooking Kyoto.
- **Kirishima** [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4625.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4625.html?ref=ashryan.io) Volcanic area with forests and wildlife. Deer roam on the Ebino Kogen side.
- **Kōjima (Kojima)** [https://www.kanko-miyazaki.jp/en/sightseeing/1133](https://www.kanko-miyazaki.jp/en/sightseeing/1133?ref=ashryan.io) Small island off the coast of Miyazaki, known for its wild Japanese macaques and the original observations of food-washing behavior.
- **Miyajima** [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3401.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3401.html?ref=ashryan.io) Island shrine site best known for Itsukushima Shrine and the “floating” torii gate, with free-roaming deer.

### Miyazaki & Southern Kyushu

- **Miyazaki Prefecture** [https://www.kanko-miyazaki.jp/en](https://www.kanko-miyazaki.jp/en?ref=ashryan.io)
- **Udo Jingu** [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e8032.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e8032.html?ref=ashryan.io) Shrine built into a seaside cave.
- **Toi Misaki** [https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1951/](https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1951/?ref=ashryan.io) Cape known for wild horses and coastal views.

### Database stuff

- **Neon** [https://neon.tech/](https://neon.tech/?ref=ashryan.io) Serverless Postgres with branching.
- **Better Auth** [https://www.better-auth.com/](https://www.better-auth.com/?ref=ashryan.io) Auth framework often discussed alongside modern DB-first stacks.
- **Row-Level Security (RLS)** [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-rowsecurity.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-rowsecurity.html?ref=ashryan.io) Native Postgres feature for per-row access control.
- **Supabase – Local development** [https://supabase.com/docs/guides/local-development](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/local-development?ref=ashryan.io) Docker-based local stack. Some of us find it to be kind of clunky.
- **Supabase – No declarative schema** For those of us who use Prisma, not having a schema file is kind of a lifestyle downgrade.
- **SQLite** [https://www.sqlite.org/index.html](https://www.sqlite.org/index.html?ref=ashryan.io) Embedded, file-based database that keeps coming up in offline-first and local dev conversations.

### Screenshots & Capture Tooling

- **Chrome DevTools – Screenshots** [https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/command-menu/#screenshots](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/command-menu/?ref=ashryan.io#screenshots) Built-in full-page and node screenshots. In DevTools, Command+Shift+P then type in “full” to find command.
- **Ash’s screenshot tool** [https://github.com/ashryanbeats/screenshot](https://github.com/ashryanbeats/screenshot?ref=ashryan.io) Just a simple CLI for capturing full screenshots of webpages. I made this because DevTools often captures screenshots before images have loaded.

### Mobile & Cross-Platform Apps

- **Expo** [https://expo.dev/](https://expo.dev/?ref=ashryan.io) Tooling and platform for building React Native apps with fast iteration.

***

See you in the new year!