Automating Everything That Doesn't Need Me
I've been writing a lot about LLMs, AI (or the so-called "Artificial Intelligence") and the like. Part of that is because I haven't been running into many problems that I feel need documenting. Bigger part is because I'm finding that "how-to" content is easy to slop with a robot, so I'd rather write about things that the clankers can't.
In a word, I'm just trying to write more human.
While I don't think I've achieved full tokenmaxxing AI psychosis levels yet, I do like agentic coding. I'm also a huge proponent for automation. If it comes up regularly, it should be automated. If it can't be fully automated, then it should at least be partially automated.
If I don't need to be materially involved, then I shouldn't be involved at all.
My latest foray into building my own agent has included a refocus around trying to automate any and everything that I can. I still consider this to be an experiment more than me drinking any sort of Kool-Aid.
Similar motives to my push for a dumber home, if I need to be involved, then it doesn't need to be smart. Well if I don't need to be involved, it should be automated.
That's led me down a rabbit hole of trying to be less and less involved with certain things. Keep in mind, this is an experiment against my personal agent, and my myriad of smaller side projects. Most of the work is code based, so that includes writing a spec and/or design, slinging code, reviewing it, merging it, and deploying it.
Most of that chain doesn't need me at all. Robots can take my half baked idea and turn it into a design spec. They can generate code that's coherent enough. Then they can review the code. I get to play gatekeeper and make them wait for my approval. From there, they can worry about merging it in and monitoring the deploy.
I measure success on my agentic game loops by how much trust I have in the output that I'm reviewing. Run the loop enough times with a watchful eye, I can see where it fucks up. We iterate, and repeat the process. Usually within a few weeks enough confidence is earned that I can say, "you don't need me to look at this anymore, I trust you".
That's not to say that it's all rainbows and unicorns. There are days where everything grinds to a halt because some new problem emerges in the agent. Tests get written, we hope it doesn't happen again. Other days a single project jumps to the top of the heap because it went off the rails in some new way.
Repeat ad nauseam.
As we iterate, I try to find things I don't need to be involved with. The better scenario is when I find shit that I don't want to do that can be automated. Each time we hit for the cycle, I free up more time. Each time that happens, I free up bandwidth to focus on bigger and better things.
The agent effectively started as a junior developer. It came to work with bright eyed enthusiasm and less than stellar output. Every few months the skills have improved, and the clanker gets a promotion.
Along the way, I too have gotten promotions. I started as a Founder / Staff+ engineer. Now with multiple projects being helmed by an agent, I'm operating more like a member of the board. The agent has not only been promoted to Chief of Staff, but they also occupy most roles below that.
Agents all the way down.
Will I still be doing things this way in a few months?
Yes... but no.
Everything is still moving pretty fast right now. Part of my agentic game loop is to revisit my processes every few weeks. What feels good today may feel like shit when whatever new model drops.
Case in point, Fable 5 is back. Should certain agents be using that, or is Opus just fine. Is some issue I'm facing because of a model or the prompt? Should I diversify away from Anthropic to be able to review and cross check better?
There's always a lot of questions that I don't have answers to. What I do know is that working with these tools regularly is a skill unto itself. Anybody that's not messing with them regularly is missing out on the part of the process where we're all learning and figuring things out.
Sure, jumping on the train in a few years will mean a lot of the trials and tribulations will be over. That's assuming these things stick, but I am optimistic.
Personally, I'm happy to be learning as I go and I don't see automating myself out of a lot of the noise to be a bad thing. I still get to code, and I don't mean "generating code". The robots generate a fucking ton of code for me, but I still have things that I code myself.
Maybe I'm digging a grave. Maybe I'm digging a moat. Regardless, I'm fired up and have been excited to clear more and more of my perpetual backlog.
:wq
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