Vibing with AI Code - Episodes Tagged with “Claude Code”

Episode 015: The Software Factory Still Needs a Human

Brendan Buckingham — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Everyone wants a software factory: tickets go in, reviewed and tested code comes out. So how do you actually build one, and where should the human stay? Brendan and Baird walk through the setup they already use on a side project. A recorded planning call becomes a spec, the spec becomes Linear tickets, and Claude Code picks the tickets up. Then they look at what's still missing: automatic pickup, real checks and balances, and a way to run it all without a $145 API bill for a routine task. They agree the code itself can go to the AI. The human still decides what gets built and signs off on how it works. Baird argues for small chunks over one-shot builds, because AI over-engineers and you lose track of what you have. He also makes the case for feeding Granola meeting transcripts straight back into the tickets. The back half covers why you should dogfood what you build ("seven apps, two users"), the idea that you can give up context but not understanding, and how vibe-coded prototypes run into trouble when they go to production because the AI follows your bad patterns without pushing back. Also: context windows that quietly make agents dumber, where the SDLC fits, and the two questions to ask your agent before any PR: "Did we do everything we set out to do? Did we do anything extra?"

Want help building your own factory, or moving a vibe-coded app to production? We're taking consulting work. Drop a comment or DM us.

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Episode 011: Activation Energy: How AI Gets You Back Into Old Projects

Brendan Buckingham — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Brendan dove back into three stalled projects in one day — a personal command center, a video game tracker, and a Rails 8 app he hadn't touched in two months — and both hosts dig into why AI makes restarting old projects so much easier: it remembers where you left off, tells you what's actually built, and (with Fable) plans and cross-checks the reassessment before you write a line of code. They get into when it's worth splitting context (personal vs. project-specific memory), why Fable feels like the best planner but not necessarily the best daily driver, and how tools like Conductor now auto-select models per task. Plus: what actually happens when sub-agents run out of session usage mid-task, and why lowering activation energy might be the single biggest thing AI has changed about how they work.

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Episode 010: Where AI Still Breaks

Brendan Buckingham — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Two years into building daily with AI, Brendan and Baird check in on what's actually still broken. Baird shares an image-processing pipeline (GPT Image 2, Nano Banana) that nails 8 out of 10 images — then randomly crops the sandwich out of frame. Brendan tells the story of Claude claiming it spun up 10 sub-agents when it actually did the work itself and just said so. They dig into why non-determinism is still the real blocker for hands-off automation, why they're skeptical of "just let the agent loop figure it out," and where AI has genuinely transformed their work: killing activation energy, handling the tedious stuff, and letting them build things they never would have built otherwise.

Thinking about bringing AI into your own work? We're opening up a limited amount of consulting — reach out via the link below.

00:00 Two-year check-in kicks off
02:00 Baird's image-cleanup pipeline: GPT Image 2 vs Nano Banana
05:00 "Fixes" that made it worse — stretched and doubled sandwich
10:00 Nano Banana's silent regeneration limit
12:00 Prompting in English: ambiguity is the real interface problem
14:00 Brendan's Rollbar sub-agent story
15:00 Babysitting scheduled automations
17:00 Why agent loops aren't the answer yet
20:00 Wrapping AI-written scripts to dodge non-determinism
21:00 Activation energy + missing the craft
26:00 Consulting announcement

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