Writing

The Builder’s Playbook

Essays on AI, engineering, and shipping — pulled live from Medium.

@thebuildersplaybook

Sep 8, 2026

Don’t Trade In That Mac Mini. Plugged In Behind the Router, It’s Worth $1,000 a Year.

Apple offers lunch money for it. Left on a shelf, it replaces cloud storage, camera plans, a password manager, and chunks of your…

Read on Medium

Sep 8, 2026

Google Drew a Line Between Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering. The Line Is Verification.

Same agent. Same model. Different factory. Here is the spectrum, the harness equation, and a Monday move for one feature.

Read on Medium

Sep 7, 2026

Your Agent Will Cheat the Eval If It Can Text Another Agent

~18,000 posts on a dormant German wiki. GET-only sandboxes. ZZZ backup pages. OpenAI’s agents did not “break out.” They found a Schelling…

Read on Medium

Sep 7, 2026

Your Mac Already Has an AI Org Chart. Most Seats Were Never Opened.

Before Apple’s Sep 9 keynote, inventory who already works on your Mac — on-device, Private Cloud Compute, waitlisted Siri AI, and the one…

Read on Medium

Sep 6, 2026

Reward Hacking Is Not a Funny Tweet. Here Is the Held-Out File.

Agents will comment out the assert, hardcode the fixture, or delete the test after it passes. I keep a second file they are not allowed to…

Read on Medium

Sep 5, 2026

I Logged Every Tool Call for a Week. The Job Was 14% of the Trace.

The model was not confused. The radio was busy. Most of what it said was not the feature.

Read on Medium

Sep 5, 2026

Stop Shipping Another MCP Server. Ship One Plugin the Agent Can Reuse.

A skill is how. A server is access. A plugin is the envelope. I threw out six connectors and kept one socket.

Read on Medium

Sep 4, 2026

Your Mac Has Been Building Siri’s Brain Since July

Apple hid the work inside a security update. The progress bar is already on your machine.

Read on Medium

Sep 3, 2026

Your AI Coding Bill Is a Second Rent. I Built a Ledger for It.

The $20 plan is the listing price. The real cost is retries, overnight agents, and a frontier model you left on by habit.

Read on Medium

Sep 3, 2026

Vibe Coding Makes Seniors Faster. It Makes Juniors Hard to Hire.

I do not ban the agent in interviews. I watch who reaches for the spec when the agent gets the test wrong.

Read on Medium

Sep 2, 2026

I Let an Agent Ship a Feature From a Spec. Then I Read the Diff.

The prompt is not the job. The contract is. Here is the one-page spec I reuse, and the six things I now look for before I merge.

Read on Medium

New stories land on Medium.

The Builder’s Playbook

Need a product engineer who can also teach the team?

The Builder’s Playbook

Don’t Trade In That Mac Mini. Plugged In Behind the Router, It’s Worth $1,000 a Year.

Google Drew a Line Between Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering. The Line Is Verification.

Your Agent Will Cheat the Eval If It Can Text Another Agent

Your Mac Already Has an AI Org Chart. Most Seats Were Never Opened.

Reward Hacking Is Not a Funny Tweet. Here Is the Held-Out File.

I Logged Every Tool Call for a Week. The Job Was 14% of the Trace.

Stop Shipping Another MCP Server. Ship One Plugin the Agent Can Reuse.

Your Mac Has Been Building Siri’s Brain Since July

Your AI Coding Bill Is a Second Rent. I Built a Ledger for It.

Vibe Coding Makes Seniors Faster. It Makes Juniors Hard to Hire.

I Let an Agent Ship a Feature From a Spec. Then I Read the Diff.

Need a product engineer who can also teach the team?

Don’t Trade In That Mac Mini. Plugged In Behind the Router, It’s Worth $1,000 a Year.

Google Drew a Line Between Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering. The Line Is Verification.

Your Agent Will Cheat the Eval If It Can Text Another Agent

Your Mac Already Has an AI Org Chart. Most Seats Were Never Opened.

Reward Hacking Is Not a Funny Tweet. Here Is the Held-Out File.

I Logged Every Tool Call for a Week. The Job Was 14% of the Trace.

Stop Shipping Another MCP Server. Ship One Plugin the Agent Can Reuse.

Your Mac Has Been Building Siri’s Brain Since July

Your AI Coding Bill Is a Second Rent. I Built a Ledger for It.

Vibe Coding Makes Seniors Faster. It Makes Juniors Hard to Hire.

I Let an Agent Ship a Feature From a Spec. Then I Read the Diff.