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Tiny Software Factories: Agentic Engineering DONE WRONG — Transcript

by IndyDevDan · 3,375 words · 499 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Welcome to Tiny Software Factories
0:02lesson one. Tiny Software Factories is a
0:04crash course mini-series where we build
0:07small useful software factories that
0:10work for you around the clock so you can
0:12move from being stuck in the loop to
0:14being near the loop. In each lesson,
0:16you'll see an empty factory and a
0:18running factory. This lets you
0:20understand the capabilities first and
0:22then you can apply them to a real
0:24problem. In lesson one, you'll dive into
0:27the world of Tiny Software Factories and
0:29learn agentic engineering done wrong.
0:32Now, I know it's a little weird. Why
0:34would you want to learn agentic
0:35engineering incorrectly? Let me explain.
0:38Tiny Software Factories is a crash
0:40course on incrementally scaling your
0:42agentic engineering to the closest
0:45[music] useful threshold. In TSF, you're
0:47going to learn many dark patterns of
0:50agentic engineering that will not scale.
0:53In exchange, you'll move fast, break
0:55things, fix them, and ship. But, these
0:58are anti-patterns. So, I want to make
0:59this super clear. Tiny Software
1:01Factories is a highly compressed lossy
1:04version of the infinite agentic
1:06engineering core lesson set. Here, we
1:08focus on near-loop agentic engineering.
1:11[music] IA3 focuses on the much
1:13higher-leverage but more challenging
1:15out-loop agentic engineering where we
1:17build fully autonomous systems that
1:19operate for you without you. What you'll
1:21see here is not recommended as long-term
1:24solutions. These anti-patterns are meant
1:26to move you from zero to value at the
1:28cost of basically everything except
1:31getting the job done. This is
1:32blitzscaling for agentic engineering.
1:34[music] This is the quick fix. It's not
1:36meditation, it's Xanax. It's not working
1:39out, it's a GLP-1. This is a useful
1:42local maximum for getting results at all
1:44costs. Now that that's out of the way,
1:46just because it isn't technically
1:48correct doesn't mean your tiny software
1:50factories can't be incredibly useful. In
1:53TSF, [music] we stop worrying about
1:55getting things right and we focus on
1:57getting things shipped. If these ideas
1:59[music] interest you and you want to get
2:00things done at the speed of agents,
2:03let's build some tiny software [music]
2:05factories.
2:11So, let's start by asking an obvious
2:14question. What is a tiny [music]
2:16software factory? A tiny software
2:18factory is a software factory built to
2:20solve one specific problem where a
2:22proactive agent works around the clock
2:25in a durable environment with you near
2:28the loop instead of in it. There are key
2:30pieces of this definition we need to
2:32highlight. Built to solve one problem
2:34with a proactive agent around the clock
2:37in a durable environment with you near
2:39the loop, not in the loop. You're going
2:42to see these properties as repeat themes
2:44as you master the tiny software factory.
2:46Now that we're aligned on a definition,
2:48let's ask the next important question.
2:50Why is this valuable? What makes a tiny
2:53software factory more valuable than
2:55sitting in the terminal and prompting an
2:57agent back and forth? In loop versus
3:00near loop. The big advantage of your
3:02tiny software factory is that you are
3:04not required in the loop. Instead, you
3:07move near the loop to give feedback,
3:09make decisions, and approve work your
3:11agent has already done. The feedback you
3:14give your near loop agent creates a data
3:16flywheel where the factory improves with
3:18each signal you give it. Let's face it,
3:21the facts are you and I are the
3:23bottleneck, and 80% or more of the work
3:26we're doing right now can run without us
3:28with the right system in place. The tiny
3:31software factory gets us there fast. In
3:34loop, you prompt. Near loop, you
3:36respond. The trick is having the right
3:38system in place so you aren't stuck with
3:40your bot in your dev chair. What else
3:42makes a tiny software factory so
3:44valuable? As you'll see, the tiny
3:45software factory is rapidly deployable.
3:48It's designed to be changed. With one
3:51meta skill and one command, bam, you can
3:53mount a new factory next to your code
3:56base to solve a specific problem. Point
3:58it at your repo, drop it in a sandbox,
4:00and you go from zero to working agentic
4:03system in minutes. Building a scalable
4:05software factory takes a ton of time
4:08even with powerful language models. The
4:09result is always one more feature away,
4:12and then you realize it doesn't do
4:14everything for every scenario you're
4:16trying to build for. The tiny software
4:18factory gives you a massive advantage
4:20because it's a highly compressed working
4:22system with great defaults you can
4:24rapidly deploy over and over. It's a
4:27quick fix, and that's the point. What
4:29else makes the tiny software factory
4:31architecture you'll see so valuable?
4:33It's extensible by design. It's designed
4:37to be customized. Every prompt, tool,
4:39hot key, extension, theme is all
4:42accessible to you and your in-loop
4:44agent. This means you can rapidly build
4:47the system that builds the system,
4:48speeding up your transition from in the
4:51loop to near the loop. You can change it
4:53so it bends to solve whatever problem
4:56you need to solve. Initialize,
4:58configure, specialize. Last but not
5:00least, the tiny software factory
5:02architecture is special because the
5:04near-loop agents inside them don't stop
5:07working for you. They contain a durable
5:09agent plus a trigger inside a sandbox to
5:12give you a proactive agent. You can
5:14configure it so it starts working before
5:17you wake up, and when you check in, the
5:18work is already waiting for your review.
5:21It doesn't wait for you to work, it
5:23works for you, then waits. We have a
5:25rapidly deployable agentic system you
5:28can spin up at a moment's notice to
5:30consistently solve one specific problem
5:32around the clock with a proactive agent.
5:35But, what [music] does a tiny software
5:37factory actually look like?
5:44Throughout tiny software factories,
5:46we'll incrementally reveal features for
5:49the tiny software factory using a
5:50feature map. We're going to work through
5:52four factory levels, and each factory
5:54level contains unique features we'll
5:56work through incrementally one by one.
5:59Every feature sits on one of three
6:01dimensions: effort required to unlock,
6:04the value you get for putting in the
6:06effort to build and use that feature.
6:08And then every feature also has a
6:10certain skill requirement that you must
6:13meet. To keep this simple in the true
6:15spirit of tiny software factory, we'll
6:17[music] focus on value and effort.
6:24The first and most important property of
6:27tiny software factories is the empty
6:29factory. The empty factory is the
6:32template. It's fully built out. It has
6:34every feature you need to specialize,
6:36but no specialization yet. The empty
6:38factory has no purpose until you give it
6:41one. Let's take a look at a real empty
6:43factory right now. In the browser, you
6:46can see we have an empty factory here.
6:49It's a minimal user interface with
6:51[music] two sidebars we're going to work
6:53through right now. Every feature we work
6:55through is a capability you have [music]
6:57that you can specialize to solve your
6:59specific problems.
7:06Let's look at what's inside the empty
7:08factory with our next feature, the agent
7:10on your right. Here, this is a durable
7:13agent inside your factory that's always
7:15on, always one message away. If we open
7:18up the right sidebar here and right
7:20ping, you can see we have a classic
7:22agent ready to work for you. This is
7:24something you're very familiar with.
7:26Every application can be supercharged
7:28with an agent so you move at the agentic
7:30speed. Every software factory must
7:32operate on something. What does this
7:34empty factory operate on?
7:41That brings us to our third feature. We
7:44have lists on your left. Every product
7:47is a list of something. What's in your
7:50list? On the left here, we have pages.
7:52So these are pages that you and your
7:54agent operate on. As you'll see, this is
7:56designed to be replaced. But with just
7:59these three features, we can start
8:00operating our tiny software factory.
8:02Explain the basics of Python,
8:05TypeScript, and Rust nested folders in
8:07our pages. We'll kick that off. So you
8:09can see Python, TypeScript, Rust in
8:11folders in the tiny software factory.
8:13It's creating these pages. It's
8:15populating the tiny software factory.
8:17There are pages we can go ahead and open
8:19up every one of these and we can see
8:21them. We have a start here and you can
8:22see that our center view [music] has now
8:24focused on the content.
8:31That brings us to our next feature.
8:33Focus is in the center. The primary
8:35thing you and your agent work on is
8:37located in the center of your tiny
8:39software factory. Focus your attention
8:41here. So for our empty software factory,
8:43we have a simple generative UI based
8:45application where we have pages, we have
8:47artifacts, we have simple markdown
8:49documents that our agent can operate,
8:51build, tweak, and tune on our behalf.
8:54You can see here we have the language
8:55basics for Python, for TypeScript, and
8:58for Rust generated by our agent and it's
9:01all here for us to analyze, to look at,
9:03and to tune and [music] tweak. But these
9:05two calls our agent has just run hints
9:07at a very important property of the tiny
9:09software [music] factories.
9:15The next key feature of the tiny
9:17software factory is agent access parity.
9:20Everything you can do, your agent can
9:22do. Every control in the UI has a
9:24matching agent tool. This has serious
9:27implications that let you move much
9:29faster than your competitors because
9:31this allows you to move at the agentic
9:33speed, the speed of agents. Let's focus
9:36in on our agent here. List pages tools.
9:38And our agent is listing all the tools
9:40it has here for operating its pages. Our
9:43agent truly has access to everything we
9:45have inside [music] the tiny software
9:47factory. Let's look at another core
9:49feature and I'll show you exactly what I
9:51mean.
9:56You do not truly own your agent if you
9:59do not have core four control. Context
10:02model, prompt, tools. A true software
10:05factory must give you full control over
10:07your agents. In our user interface here,
10:10we have that exactly. If we go to the
10:12settings here, you can see we have a
10:14comprehensive list of settings. We have
10:16the essentials, we have the core four,
10:17and then we have our advanced settings.
10:19Let's talk about the core four, because
10:20this is what makes up your agent. If you
10:22master the core four, you'll master your
10:25agent. And if you can configure and
10:26customize it, you can build agents no
10:28one else can. And in your tiny software
10:30factory, that means everything. You can
10:32see here, we have a context bar, we have
10:34auto compaction at 200k, force
10:36compaction at 500k. Once our agent
10:39crosses the 200k threshold, it'll start
10:41compacting in the background. We'll talk
10:43about durable agents more in a moment,
10:45but this is a key feature of them. You
10:46can see we have model selection and
10:48thinking level broken down into tiers.
10:50This is very important. You don't want
10:52to fix it on one model, you want to use
10:53the right model for the job at the right
10:55performance, cost, speed trade-off. We
10:58have a system prompt that we have prompt
11:00engineered. It does very specific things
11:02inside the software factory. And then of
11:03course, we have our tools. You can see
11:05all the tools our agent has there. And
11:07then we have some settings. So now we
11:09have a couple key features stacking up
11:11here. And we can showcase this. If we go
11:13into the settings for the core four, you
11:15can see context focus there. We have
11:17auto compaction on. We can see our model
11:19details. We can see all of our prompts
11:21broken down, custom prompts, extension
11:24prompts, which we'll get to, and custom
11:26prompts that we can append to our agent
11:28at any time. And of course, all the
11:30tools our agents have access to, we can
11:31see them in quick view mode here. We can
11:34show the description of each, and then
11:35we can show the full parameters in
11:37whatever syntax we like to ingest our
11:40tools in. But our features are starting
11:41to stack up now. So let me show you what
11:43it really means for your agent to have
11:45agentic access parity. I'll close our
11:47main view, focus on our agent, and then
11:49I'll run disable all coding tools,
11:51update thinking level to max. I'll kick
11:53this off, and our agent can modify
11:56itself. This is one of the key
11:57advantages of having a durable agent
12:00with the right tools. This is reflection
12:02for agents. If you open our settings
12:04now, you can see that our thinking is
12:06now set to high. And if we go to our
12:07tools, you can see that all of the
12:09coding tools, read, write, edit, bash,
12:11have now been disabled. Our agent has a
12:14specific set of tools that we can tweak
12:15and it can self-modify itself up to some
12:18useful limit that again you can set.
12:20Obviously, this capability can be very
12:22dangerous if you don't control it
12:24properly, but agentic access parity lets
12:27your agent do everything you can do and
12:29the most important customizations any
12:31agentic engineer can make now is the
12:33configuration of your agents and the
12:35code surrounding your agents. And if you
12:37can do that at the agentic speed, you'll
12:39move a lot faster. We can [music]
12:41customize the core four with agentic
12:43access parity.
12:49That leads us to another big feature
12:52that the tiny software factory has that
12:54you can tap into. You can build an
12:56extensible harness. This tiny software
12:58factory near loop agent is built on
13:01slices of capability. What do I mean by
13:03that? If we hop back into the settings
13:05menu and we go down to our advanced
13:07settings, inside of harness, you can see
13:09that this agent is a composition of
13:12several agent harnesses. We have the
13:14factory harness. We have our coding
13:16tools, which you can see here we've
13:17fully disabled. We then have our page
13:20harness. We have our image generation
13:22harness, which is another layer of
13:23capability, and then we have our factory
13:25controls. Excluding the default coding
13:27agent settings, we have four additional
13:30layers we've stacked on top of this. And
13:32this is fully customizable as you'll see
13:34in subsequent lessons. We'll showcase
13:35how to harness engineer new capabilities
13:38inside your tiny software factory near
13:40loop agent. Tools that feel great to
13:42operate make for a better [music]
13:44experience. And better experiences means
13:46you're more willing to invest in the
13:48tools you're building and using.
13:55Which is why our next feature of our
13:56tiny software factory is so important,
13:58customizable DX UX. You can customize
14:02your tiny software factory to the core.
14:03We're talking themes, we're talking
14:04updating the nav bars, we're talking hot
14:06keys, animations. Shape your factory to
14:08how you do your work. As you've likely
14:11noticed, I've been opening the settings
14:13with another hot key. If you want to
14:14move fast, the tools you use must enable
14:17you to do that. And the Tiny Software
14:19Factory was built with this in mind.
14:21What do I mean by that? Let's keep
14:22extending on our theme here. So, I'll
14:24run this. I'll say update to another
14:26dark theme, then add context bar to the
14:28agent nav bar, then add status in the
14:31global nav bar on the left side. We'll
14:33let our agent kick off, and it's going
14:34to check the themes. It has full agent
14:37access, and it's updated our settings.
14:39So, couple things have changed. We have
14:41our agent status in the nav bar. you saw
14:43we updated our theme. So, once again, we
14:45have agentic access to everything we can
14:47do in the UI. This means we can move at
14:49the speed of agents. And I mean full
14:52agentic access parity, even simple
14:54things like this. On select the page.
14:56Everything you can do, your agent can do
14:58as well. It's the small operations that
15:01you take, that I take, that stack up big
15:04over time. This context bar is a little
15:06scrunched here. Move context bar into
15:08full width mode. This is going to give
15:10us more space. It's going to push it
15:11down. There we go. You can take this.
15:13You can customize it. You can really do
15:14whatever you want with it. You can make
15:16it your own. We're not going to use that
15:17much context, so we're going to say drop
15:18context bar. I don't quite like this
15:20theme, so we're going to hop back into
15:21our theme here in the settings, and I'm
15:23just going to update this. We're going
15:24to switch to a midnight. We can continue
15:26to customize to our heart's content. Of
15:28course, in the nav bar, you can see
15:29exactly how our agent is organizing the
15:32user interface. Fully customizable,
15:34fully extendable. We can update the
15:35animation so we can understand when our
15:38agent is working versus when it's not.
15:39And then we have hot keys. fully
15:41configure, customize the application to
15:43move very, very quickly. In a world
15:45where software can change at light
15:47speed, our core tooling, our core
15:50applications must be built with that in
15:52mind. This is liquid software. It's
15:54meant to be changed. It's meant to be
15:56customized. [music] That's a key
15:57property of the Tiny Software Factory.
16:00Switch back to default TSF theme. What
16:02else makes the Tiny Software Factory
16:04[music] so powerful?
16:10If you want to move near the loop and
16:12eventually out the loop, you're going to
16:14need cron, and specifically cron
16:16prompts. These are exactly what you
16:18think they are. It's prompts on a
16:20schedule. It's run by your agent while
16:22you're away. Let's take a look at this
16:24because this is a massive up level for
16:26your agentic engineering because with
16:28the tiny software factory, this idea is
16:30rapidly deployable against any problem
16:33you have. So, out of the box, the hot
16:35key for cron is R. You can see here,
16:36every cron has a simple set of items,
16:39right? It has a name, it has a schedule,
16:41and then it has a prompt. That's really
16:43it. This lets you get up and running
16:45with repeat schedules, repeat jobs
16:47instantly with zero cost. Let's create a
16:50cron and really start getting value out
16:51of our near loop agent here. I'll say
16:53add cron, every minute add a new file to
16:55each of our programming languages
16:58because remember we had it write out
16:59some language basics here. And then I'll
17:01say breakdown one new concept each.
17:04We'll kick that off. Let's see what our
17:05agent thinks about that. Two blockers,
17:07has no file rights. That's fine. It
17:08shouldn't need this. Every 3 minutes.
17:10That's a lot per day. That's fine.
17:12Confirm anyway. Use page tools. TSF
17:15cron. There it goes. There it is. It's
17:17kicking off that workflow every minute.
17:18It's going to read the pages and it's
17:20going to add a new fundamental into our
17:22folders for every one of our languages.
17:24Obviously, this is just a random example
17:27to showcase what this really looks like,
17:28what this really feels like inside your
17:30tiny software factory. But you can see
17:32here, we got context managers for
17:34Python, classic width statements,
17:35context manager decorator looks great.
17:37TypeScript utility types looks great. We
17:40got why it matters, common mistakes at
17:41the bottom. Awesome. And then Rust
17:43lifetimes, label of borrow, tell
17:45compiler how long it's valid, why it
17:47matters, common mistakes. Fantastic.
17:49Here we are. We're getting to that point
17:51where minute's almost complete and now
17:53our agent is going [music] to get that
17:54event once again. There it is. The cron
17:56is running and it doesn't matter if
17:58we're here. This is the important part.
18:00I can close this. This is a durable
18:02application. I can refresh as much as I
18:04want. I can close this browser window if
18:06I want and our agent is just going to
18:08keep working, keep stacking up features.
18:10Cron prompts are an incredibly
18:12important, powerful, and fast, simple
18:15way to add repeat jobs into your tiny
18:18software factory. You're moving fast.
18:20You're getting done, and now
18:21[music] with this next feature, you're
18:23turning your empty software factory into
18:25a
18:26>> [music]

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