Notes from the pond
Articles
Notes on building focused, practical software, written as we build it.
September 7, 2026
When AI agents start doing the work, ‘Who owns this task?’ becomes a much more interesting question.
We’re adding AI agents to project teams while still tracking status with tools built for human self-reporting. A large ERP program shows why evidence beats self-reported status, and where AI fits without replacing human judgment.
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August 27, 2026
Comparing AI System Designs
A staffing analogy for choosing between single LLM calls, structured workflows, and autonomous agents, and why the cheapest tool that solves the problem beats the most impressive one.
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August 14, 2026
AI Agents and Semantic RAG Aren't the Same Thing
A customer service refund request shows why RAG retrieves trusted context while agents coordinate the decision and the action, and why mixing the two up gets teams in trouble.
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August 14, 2026
Building Council of AI
Four AI models, one question, and two production bugs that shaped how the pieces fit together.
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August 14, 2026
Why I Didn't Use LangChain to Chunk Patent Text
We skipped LangChain for the chunking layer in our patent ingestion pipeline and wrote our own splitter instead. Here's why that was the right call.
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