writing · 80 essays

The archive

Essays on engineering leadership, the agentic SDLC, platform engineering, and enterprise AI — what actually constrains software delivery.

Series 4

// featured · August 23, 2026

My Mac Ran Out of Headroom, So I Built Some

A runaway collection of agents, local models, and browser processes pushed my Mac past the point where Activity Monitor was useful. So I built System Headroom, and Apple's sandbox ended up shaping the product more than I expected.

Read essay

agentic-sdlc

$ vinny init agentic-sdlc
→ spinning up reasoning loop
✓ spec generated · 217 lines
✓ tests scaffolded · 14 cases
⚠ coverage gap detected · branch /auth
→ prompting refinement
✓ branch coverage · 96%
// shipping behavior, not just code

August 20, 20267 min audio
The Golden Path Needs an Intent Interface★
The golden path made the right way easier to follow. It still asks developers to learn the road. With AI, intent can become the interface while the platform keeps the standards, the controls, and the gate.
Platform EngineeringAgentic SDLCSpec-Driven Development
August 15, 20269 min audio
Context Is a Platform Capability Now★
We treat enterprise context as something developers gather before they can use AI well. Platform teams should treat trusted context as something the platform provides.
Platform EngineeringAgentic SDLCAI Strategy
August 13, 202611 min audio
Your Platform Has a New User: The Agent★
We built internal platforms for developers. Now those developers increasingly arrive with an AI agent beside them. That changes what a good platform needs to provide.
Platform EngineeringAgentic SDLCAI Strategy
August 11, 20264 min audio
The Accidental Podcast★
I automated audio versions of my essays, looked away for four months, and found a 22-episode back catalog. Meet Never the Stack, the podcast I never meant to start.
GenAIProductivitySide Projects
August 9, 202613 min audio
Where the Saved Hour Goes★
AI can create a real time dividend for engineers, and history says unallocated capacity gets absorbed before anyone notices. The case for deciding where the saved hour goes.
AI EconomicsEngineering LeadershipAgentic SDLC
August 4, 202612 min audio
The Frontier on Your Laptop★
Open-weight models have raised the local capability floor while hosted intelligence keeps getting cheaper. The strategic question is no longer which side wins, but which model earns each workload.
AI EconomicsAI StrategyGenAI
August 3, 202623 min audio
Don't Automate the Apprenticeship Out of Engineering★
Entry-level work was never just cheap execution. It was the training system that produced the people capable of judging what the machines build.
Engineering LeadershipAI StrategyAgentic SDLC
August 1, 202612 min audio
The Modernization Backlog Just Got Repriced★
The rewrite taboo broke for systems that can grade their own replacement. At enterprise scale, the first modernization dollar should fund the answer key, not the port.
Agentic SDLCAI EconomicsEngineering Leadership
July 26, 20267 min
The More AI We Have, the More Human Judgment Matters★
AI is making execution abundant. As intelligence becomes cheaper and more accessible, durable organizational advantage shifts toward judgment, context, verification, and leadership.
AI StrategyEngineering LeadershipContext Spine
July 17, 202619 min audio
Everyone Knows You Never Rewrite★
For twenty-six years, the full rewrite was the cardinal sin of software engineering. Then one engineer ported half a million lines of Bun from Zig to Rust in eleven days. The taboo was never about code. It was a price tag, and for systems whose intent lives in an executable oracle, the price just collapsed.
AI EconomicsAI StrategyEngineering Leadership

featured

My Mac Ran Out of Headroom, So I Built Some

The Golden Path Needs an Intent Interface★

Context Is a Platform Capability Now★

Your Platform Has a New User: The Agent★

The Accidental Podcast★

Where the Saved Hour Goes★

The Frontier on Your Laptop★

Don't Automate the Apprenticeship Out of Engineering★

The Modernization Backlog Just Got Repriced★

The More AI We Have, the More Human Judgment Matters★

Everyone Knows You Never Rewrite★