Spatial Thoughts Newsletter #46

The past few months have brought huge improvements in the tooling for AI-assisted agentic-coding workflows. Claude Code has become an essential developer tool that has completely changed how we create and use software. For me, it has brought back the joy of programming by allowing rapid iteration and building tools that were either too hard or required a significant investment of time.

I was able to use Claude Code to organize my notes and many years of bookmarks into a neatly organized website. The whole process of essentially building a CLAUDE.md file with instructions and working with Claude Code to push the data to a static website. Now the process is automated and the website gets updated with my new bookmarks periodically.

Building custom apps has also become much more accessible. I needed a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for my business and with the help of Claude Code, I was able to build one within a day. The most challenging part was not building the app, but collecting and harmonizing all the data. AI agents excel at data wrangling - and with new capabilities like Chrome MCP support, I was able to automate data extraction easily. Read my post Building a CRM for My Small Business where I have outlined my workflow.

Python is more important than ever for leveraging AI, and it’s easier than ever to build things once you grasp the fundamentals. If you are a geospatial professional and feeling overwhelmed about where to begin learning to code, check out our upcoming Python class.

• Python Foundation for Spatial Analysis (beginner-friendly): 8-9 & 15-16 April 2026

• Advanced QGIS (with QGIS.org certification): 23, 24, 30 April & 1 May 2026

We also offer Student Discounts and Scholarships. If you qualify, please do apply!

Google’s AlphaEarth Foundations (AEF) Satellite Embeddings are now available in an easy-to-use cloud-native format. We have put together a tutorial on how to use this dataset at scale for performing similarity searchwithout Earth Engine or any proprietary technology.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to create learning content for younger students and children. Recently, I’ve started using agentic coding tools to build apps and games with my daughter, and it’s been a wonderful way to introduce programming concepts. In this video, we share one of the first apps we built together.