Things that happened

I've installed https://github.com/johncmunson/claude-code-transcripts which is handy for copying formatted content from Claude Code into Obsidian. (I installed this rather than Simon Willison's original version because I don't have python tooling installed.) I've used it a few times if I've wanted to copy something from the transcript and retain the formatting, and it's worked well so far.
The guy who has taken the lead on AI adoption at work was speaking to the whole company recently and I was really encouraged by some of what he was saying. It seems there is a bottom-up desire for transparency around when AI has been used, which I thought was a good sign of responsible usage. He was also quite positive about having varied adoption rates around the business, and happy for people to use AI as much or as little as they find helpful. I was glad of that attitude, as opposed to trying to push AI on people who don't find it useful. His emphasis was very much on making tools and training available to everyone, but leaving it up to individuals how helpful they find those tools while doing their work.

Things I learnt

I needed to update some data in a data model I wasn't familiar with. I used AI too much, and it took a long time to verify what AI produced. I ended up changing tack, and just using AI to find the relevant database tables. I then manually verified that no other tables were relevant by checking foreign keys, and manually worked out what the data change should be. It was definitely a case where using AI slowed things down.

With the coding agent space moving so quickly, there's always something new to try. It's impossible to keep on top of all the new developments. One impact of this is that the industry holds out the perpetual hope that salvation is just around the corner. Even if you hit frustrations actually using an agent for your work, a week later some new shiny thing will come out with the promise of making everything better. For example, I often vibe code user scripts (pieces of javascript which run in the browser when using a specified website, in order to customise its appearance or functionality). This is very hit–and–miss, presumably at least partly because the LLM agent has no way to verify whether the script is behaving as intended. Now there is a chrome extension for Claude which can be used by Claude Code to interact with the browser. This would probably make Claude better at this sort of work (although it also introduces security risks and I haven't yet read up on the mitigations which are in place, so I currently have no plans to install it). But it's another thing to install, another thing to try. It's yet another implicit message that the good stuff is just around the corner, and that even if you've found AI not to be useful you should try it again — and again, and again, and again, increasing your mental lock–in each time.

Most ideas I have for blog posts never see the light of day because I don't find the time to write them. Here's what I didn't get round to.