a casual guide to coding agents in real software

practical guidance for working with ai under real world constraints and tradeoffs.

why i made this

over the last two years, i’ve spent a crazy amount of time trying to understand coding with AI.

that started with using them to build things for myself, mostly because i was curious and wanted to learn faster. then i started using them for my own business, for work with record labels, and eventually on software being used by YC-backed companies. somewhere along the way, i also became the kind of person who checks X every other week to see which model suddenly got better, what changed in Codex or Claude Code, which tiny startup just got acquihired for $10B, and who the next freakishly smart 24yo everyone is arguing about will be.

i also became interested in the bigger differences underneath all of that: the models themselves, the tools built around them, and the direction each company seems to be pushing toward.

this site is basically my attempt to write all of that down while it’s happening.