Recent content on Dylan Watt
I’m publishing the template I use for AI Coded projects here . For the last two years, I’ve been forcing myself to use AI to write as much of my code as possible, because I want to understand the technology’s weaknesses and strengths. Things started to take off with Cursor’s agent mode, and the release of Anthropics Sonnet 3.7 model and then Claude Code rocketed it to a place…
5 Essentials for getting the most from Coding Agents Spend the time to teach them your Project There are a lot of AI coding agents out there, but they all stall out if you don’t tool your codebase for them. There’s a ceiling of how effective they can be if they’re running in a boilerplate environment, with no customized context or guidance.
I’ve been getting into personalizing Claude desktop for more much more detailed, powerful responses. Model Contect Protocol (MCP), is a way to expose tools (APIs) to an AI agent to get custom data, or do custom actions. The issue is that the request and response are all fully written and read by the LLM, so for large datasets, you’re making the LLM your data transport layer as well as…
I recently had a well upvoted comment on hacker news regarding an AI agent and, as is the way of the internet, somebody decided to stalk my online presence to find something unrelated to be mean about.
The City upon a hill for AI coding is that a well specified ticket should get an automated pull request implementing it. The act of coding itself will go from carpentry to CNC, where you still must understand the properties of the material you work with, but shaping that material is a easily repeatable task, so you just focus on the goal. Many of the day to day tickets a software engineer runs…
When I first started writing code, I had a sense of joy in the fact I was learning the arcane incantations that brought modern day magic to life. Over time that feeling faded as I faced the realities of building code at scale. Bogged down by so many opinions of the “right” way to do things, instead of the joy of creation I now felt the dread of knowing I hadn’t tested the code…
About Me I’m a software technologist with a focus on end user product. I’ve worked in VC startups for around 15 years, including my own. I’ve managed multiple teams, working across Education, Real Estate, Marketing, and Account Management, both B2B and DTC. I’m currently working as a Fractional CTO/CDO for a few startups and non profits, heavily focused on the “Modern…
The 8 factor AI Coding Guide Test : I must have a fast, comprehensive suite of tests. Fast feedback loops are paramount. The longer an Agent continues down a path with a bad assumption, the harder it is to recover. Modularize : I must architect my code modularly, as to minimize the context needed by the Agent. Sandbox : I must run code in a sandbox that allows the agent to run wild. If I need to…