AI engineering
New Skills v1.3 Brings /pr, /implement-spec, and /retro
- /implement-spec — allows you to take specifications, break them down into parts, and have subagents implement them
- /pr — create a PR for completed work
- CONTEXT.md is now GLOSSARY.md
- /retro — looks at previous agent sessions to find ways to improve things
Culture
There’s No Such Thing as an AI-Ready Culture
- “What organizations need instead is a culture of adaptability: the capacity to flex as strategy, technology, and work evolve.” The key attributes include speed, agility, and action orientation.
- Move from activity (did we follow the steps) to impact (did we get the desired result).
- Make experimentation the cultural norm. Start small, learn quickly, and use evidence to decide what to do next.
- Reduce decision bottlenecks by building decision systems that help people closer to the work make the decision.
- Connect work across boundaries rather than optimizing only what’s in your control (e.g., function, budget, process).
- Foster the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Software engineering
Why Good Codebases Go Bad (and How to Stop It)
- From Michael Feathers… Legacy code is code without tests.
- Without tests, every change is a gamble. The cost of change goes up over time.
- Systems that are easy to change are not legacy systems regardless of age.
- If your current “protection” is that you understand how the system works, what happens when your team gets reorganized in 6 months? See Peter Naur’s 1995 paper about programming as theory building.
- What makes legacy systems?
- Loss of feedback.
- Loss of understanding.
- Loss of the supporting ecosystem (old language, old dependencies, lack of skills to use old tech).
- See Manny Lehman’s statement about software evolution (entropy).
- Write tests as you write the code to get built-in feedback.
- Protect your understanding by using executable specifications (acceptance tests).
- Protect the ecosystem by having an automated deployment pipeline.
- Only change legacy systems if there is generally a need; rewrites are expensive.
- Make changes tactically using the strangler fig pattern (approval/characterization tests) so you can refactor in small steps with confidence.
- Legacy = you’ve lost the ability to make changes quickly and safely
7 Authentication Concepts Every Developer Should Know
This 20-minute video provides a visual overview of basic, digest, API key, sessions, bearer tokens, access/refresh tokens, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, SSO, and identity protocols.