Thinking Through AI

Knowing Got Fast. Getting It Right Didn’t.

What I think AI is bringing into the world, and the frame of mind I would hand anyone, engineer or not.

Oct 11 • Thinking Through AI

I Used AI to Negotiate a Car. The Negotiation Wasn’t the Interesting Part.

AI didn’t close the dealer’s information advantage. It closed my processing gap.

Oct 4 • Thinking Through AI

September 2026

How to Set Up an Agent Software Factory

The starter kit promised in “An Agent That Opens Its Own Gate” is public. Here is how to stand up the line: narrow stations, three human gates, and…

Sep 27 • Thinking Through AI

Language Was the Barrier. It Isn’t Anymore.

Six jobs stand between a thought and a published post. AI agents took five of them off my hands. Here’s the one I kept, and the rule I hold myself to.

Sep 6 • Thinking Through AI

August 2026

Skills That Build Agents

Four skills you can install in Claude Code today, and what they teach you about packaging your own judgment.

Aug 30 • Thinking Through AI

Save the Session, Not the Transcript

A small skill that turns finished coding sessions into notes you can find later.

Aug 23 • Thinking Through AI

The Trip My Camera Roll Remembered

I built a travel site with an AI copilot. The web development was the boring part.

Aug 16 • Thinking Through AI

July 2026

Every Department's Agent Map Looks the Same

I mapped agents onto twelve company functions. The maps converged on one design, and the real work turned out to be the refusal list.

Jul 12 • Thinking Through AI

1

What I Set Up to Run Parts of My Life With Agents

I wired agents to my money, time, health, and learning. The surprise wasn't saved time. It was a lighter head.

Jul 5 • Thinking Through AI

June 2026

An Agent That Opens Its Own Gate Has No Gate

The hard part of an autonomous coding loop isn't the agent — it's making the human checkpoint impossible for the agent to skip. Notes from a first…

Jun 28 • Thinking Through AI

How I Built a Harness to Run a Company of Agents

A goal in, a shipped feature out. The agents, what each one produced, the runtime we built to run them, and where it broke. A small, honest experiment…

Jun 21 • Thinking Through AI

1

On Prompting Well

William Zinsser wrote one of the best books on context engineering in 1976. He just didn't know it was about machines.

Jun 14 • Thinking Through AI