Bringing Deep Research to the Terminal
I lost a research report switching between the Gemini app and my terminal. Frustrated, I built what I needed: a Gemini CLI extension that brings deep research directly into my workflow. No more browser tabs, no lost formatting—just markdown files appearing where I actually work. Personal software for an audience of one.
Keep reading
The Era of Personal Software
Building bespoke tools is now often faster than searching for them. We are entering the era of Personal Software: applications built for an audience of one. Explore the shift from discovery to creation, and why AI makes it easier than ever to fit the handle to your own grip.
Keep reading
The Guardrails of Autonomy
Giving AI agents terminal access creates a tension between autonomy and safety. To cure “Confirmation Fatigue,” I built the Gemini CLI Policy Engine. It acts as a firewall for tool calls, allowing you to define granular guardrails—from safe exploration to hard stops—enabling true autonomy without the anxiety.
Keep reading
Bringing the Office to the Terminal
Leaving the terminal to check a doc or calendar breaks your flow and invites a flood of notifications. The Google Workspace extension for Gemini CLI solves this by bringing your office tools directly into the command line. Search docs, check schedules, and send messages—all without ever hitting Alt-Tab.
Keep reading
The Joy of Deleting Code: Rebuilding My Podcast Memory
I replaced my complex, self-managed podcast AI pipeline with Gemini File Search. The result? I deleted thousands of lines of code, migrated 18,000 transcripts, and turned a fragile system into a robust service. It wasn’t just an update; it was permission to stop doing the busy work and focus on building.
Keep reading
Choosing Your Agent Framework
Building an AI agent from scratch teaches you the fundamentals, but the real work begins when you choose a framework. This post explores the landscape of agentic frameworks—from enterprise-grade systems like Google’s ADK to collaborative tools like CrewAI—helping you select the right scaffolding for your next intelligent application.
Keep reading
On Context, Agents, and a Path to a Standard
AI agents need context to be true partners. This post explores the GEMINI.md system built for the Gemini CLI and contrasts it with the promising Agents.md standard. I outline three key proposals—file includes, model-specific pragmas, and context hierarchy—needed for a universal standard that all tools can adopt.
Keep reading
Managing the Agent’s Attention
We’ve given our agents senses, memory, and hands to act. But there’s a hidden bottleneck: attention. An agent’s context window is its workbench, and a cluttered bench leads to confusion. We’ll explore why the true art of building agents isn’t about infinite space, but mastering the focus within it.
Keep reading
Putting Up the Guardrails
As AI agents transition from suggesting to acting, our responsibility as builders shifts. This post explores the new security landscape, from battling prompt injections—where language itself is a vulnerability—to implementing vital guardrails like human-in-the-loop confirmations and the Principle of Least Privilege. Crafting secure agents means building a resilient, multi-layered defense to ensure powerful AI remains trustworthy.
Keep reading
Guiding the Agent’s Behavior
An agent with tools is like a smart intern: brilliant but needs direction. Guiding it requires more than prompting; it’s an engineering discipline. We’ll explore how to architect an agent’s behavior using a clear division of labor between system prompts, conversation history, and tool descriptions for reliable results.
Keep reading
An Agent’s Toolkit
An agent that can think but not act is still trapped in its own mind. In this post, we explore the most critical step in our journey: giving our agent hands. We dive into the world of tools, the secure loop that governs their use, and how they transform an AI from a passive knower to an active doer, turning queries into real-world workflows.
Keep reading
The Manager’s Edge in the Age of AI
There’s a subtle art to getting the best out of people, and the same is true for AI. This post explores why the “soft skills” of management—clarity, context-setting, and iterative feedback—are becoming the essential “hard skills” for guiding our AI partners in this new era of collaboration.
Keep reading
The Agent’s Memory
How does an AI agent remember? We dive into the architecture of agentic memory, moving beyond the limitation of stateless APIs. This post explores the layers—working memory for the now, episodic for the past, and semantic for deep knowledge—that are essential to transforming a forgetful tool into a capable partner.
Keep reading
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
My summer trip to Australia and Fiji had a memorable detour: a two-week creative journey into code. From a lounge chair by the beach, I built Agent Mode for Gemini Scribe—a new, persistent AI partner for writing. It turns out the best souvenirs are the ones you build yourself.
Keep reading
How Agents Think
How does an AI agent actually “think”? It’s not a single process, but a choice between cognitive patterns. This post explores four foundational architectures: the improvisational ReAct loop, the meticulous Plan-and-Execute strategy, and more. Discover the “mental operating systems” driving the next evolution of software development.
Keep reading
The Examined Life of a Developer
The world of engineering is no longer confined to a single company’s walls. We contribute to open source and collaborate across many different places. A simple tool that leverages AI to tell a compelling story helps you not just see your work, but truly understand it.
Keep reading
The Anatomy of an AI Agent
What makes an AI agent different from a simple tool? Using the analogy of a paper map versus a GPS, we explore the shift to active, goal-oriented partners. This post dissects an agent’s fundamental anatomy: its ability to perceive the world (senses), make decisions (brain), and act (hands).
Keep reading
The Agentic Shift: Welcome to the Age of Agents
Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed ground-shifting moments in technology, from the internet to the mobile revolution. Today, we’re on the cusp of another: the agentic shift. We’re moving beyond AI that creates to AI that acts. This series explores this new era of autonomous, mission-driven AI partners.
Keep reading
The Last Programmers
Inspired by Xipu Li’s article “The Last Programmers,” this post explores software development’s history as a climb up a ladder of abstraction. From machine code to AI-assisted “vibe coding,” each new layer has allowed developers to focus on higher-level problems, pushing the craft to mature.
Keep reading
The Unseen Thread of Context
A friend of mine, Chris Perry, wrote a thought-provoking piece recently on how context is the crucial missing ingredient holding AI back. It’s an idea that has been echoing in my own work, and his post and our recent discussions on this have really crystallized it perfectly. In our rush toward more powerful models and more capable agents, we sometimes forget that true intelligence isn’t just about processing power; it’s about memory, continuity, and the unseen thread of context that connects one moment to the next. This hits home for me. In my own experiments with AI, whether it’s building…
Keep reading
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.