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 004: AI Productivity Systems for Developers: Claude Command Center, and Staying Focused

Brendan Buckingham — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0400

After a bit of a hiatus, we are back this week to discuss AI-driven productivity and the challenge of staying focused amid rapidly evolving tools. We compare our approaches to using AI to help with productivity. We also discuss using multiple Claude instances to parallelize bug fixes, the difficulty of review/testing and maintaining understanding, and why safer integrated agent-style tools may beat early open-source alternatives.

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00:00 Back on the Mic
00:45 AI Productivity Shift
01:35 Email and Slack Triage
03:43 PARA and Daily Priorities
04:37 Analog Cards vs Apps
06:00 AI Surfacing Tasks
08:45 Danger of False Productivity
12:03 Parallelizing Bug Fixes
13:24 Trust and Understanding Gaps
16:34 Acceptance Tests Missing
19:33 Back to Productivity Focus
20:07 Obie Fernandez Prompt System
21:11 Building the Command Center
22:53 Daily Prompts to Slash Commands
27:11 Minimalist Workflow and TickTick
31:02 OpenClaw vs Safer Agents
34:34 Finding the Right UI Layer
37:07 Keeping AI in Its Place
38:34 Wrap Up and Next Steps

ClaudeCode #Windsurf #AICoding #VSCode #CodingTools #AIProgramming

Vibing with AI Code - Episodes Tagged with “Vibe Coding”

Episode 015: The Software Factory Still Needs a Human

Episode 004: AI Productivity Systems for Developers: Claude Command Center, and Staying Focused