Not everything needs to be AI-powered, even within an AI-first tool. I recently learned this while writing a Claude skill paired with the Claude in Chrome extension, and I got a lot more clarity on how to get the most out of these tools. Here’s what I learned. Writing My First Claude Skill I was […]...

As a software developer, you will need to become familiar with many tools and technologies as you work and grow in the field. This is not helped by the fact that it feels like new tools are being released every day, not to mention new feature updates added to tools you already know. The easiest […] ...

Five years ago, I had just finished three years working here at Atomic Object, and wrote up a blog post reflecting on some of the projects I had worked on, to give a window into what the job is like. Now, in 2026, it’s been eight (!) years since I started. I don’t think I’ve […] The post An Overview...

One of the more noticeable changes with coding agents shows up when you sit down to pair with someone newer to the codebase for mentorship pair programming. On the surface, things can look like they’re going unusually well. Code appears quickly, the structure is reasonable, and there are fewer momen...

I’ve been using Claude Code steadily for the last three-plus months. I wouldn’t call myself a power user, but I’ve settled into a rhythm that works: tight PR loops, lean on it for real feature work, push back when it wanders. Why I Finally Bothered with Claude Code Insights The tooling in this space...

On a recent software development project that already planned to use AWS, we used AWS Cognito for authentication. Cognito is Amazon’s managed identity platform for web and mobile apps, offering features like MFA, password reset flows, and sign-in. On paper, it’s a strong fit for projects already usi...

Most agent setups are overbuilt. You can feel the framework wanting to happen before the problem is even clear. There is a planner, a runtime, a memory layer, a tool registry, a workflow engine, and a long explanation for why all of that is necessary. Then you look at the actual job, and it is […] T...

One might think computer vision models are supposed to be easy to put into production. There are whole companies built on that promise: label a few images, click train, click deploy, done. In practice, it’s messier. Most of us working with these models aren’t ML experts, and moving fast to keep up w...

I’ve been working with AI long enough to be past the “please write an epic poem about my dog” phase and into something that actually moves my work. The real shift for me, in the last couple of months, has been using tools like Claude Cowork and Cursor. It’s not because they generate better prose […]...

I’ve been approached more times than I can count by organizations on LinkedIn, all of them claiming to be impressed by my background and eager to feature my story in their publication. After doing my research, the pattern became clear. Your name gets listed in a booklet for free, but your photo, you...

Anyone who has spent time navigating downtown Raleigh, N.C., knows the routine well. You have a clear destination in mind, you know the most direct route, and with any luck, the lights will cooperate. But Raleigh is a city that never stops evolving. Road construction, lane closures, and unexpected d...

Pair programming has always had a bit of a reputation problem. It’s easy to look at two people working on the same task and see inefficiency. More coordination, more talking, less obvious forward progress. Even on teams that value it, there’s usually some quiet pressure to just go knock something ou...

There’s an assumption floating around right now that working with AI is supposed to feel effortless. When you prompt AI, you describe what you want, iterate a bit, and eventually land on something usable. Sometimes that works. More often, it leads to a long chain of almost-correct outputs, missed ed...

Recently, my software development team needed to upgrade our Expo version (it was at 52). Doing so in a monorepo containing multiple web and mobile apps was a big job—when we upgraded, we’d need to verify that the React and React Native versions in all the apps in the monorepo were compatible with t...

Recently, I was onboarded to a React Native project on a new developer laptop. I realized that the initial setup to launch the app had a few tricks and small gotchas that weren’t obvious at first. Here’s a simple breakdown that will hopefully help if you need it! Setting Up Developer Tools Before co...

I don’t write code, I don’t build models, and a year ago, I was the person Googling, “What is a prompt” while pretending I already knew the answer. Now, I give a talk called “Claude for Normies” to rooms full of professionals who feel the same way I did then. I’ve given it enough times […] The post ...

97% of executives say they’ve deployed AI in the past year. Only 29% say they’re seeing real ROI. (Both from Writer’s 2026 Enterprise AI Adoption survey — 2,400 global leaders) I’ve been sitting with that gap for weeks now — not because the numbers surprise me, but because I keep watching it play ou...

One important practice we employ at Atomic is developer rotations. This provides benefits for the longer-term success of the project and keeps our developers at the top of their game. While you might assume that long-running project teams, living with the project through its conception, implementati...

My software development team had a client who wanted to represent activity on a stage, not in the usual top-down layout that shows up all over the internet. A 3D stage? Reasonable request, slightly unreasonable visual problem. My wacky idea: what if this was mostly CSS? Maybe a little JavaScript. Bu...

A few years back, I created portable-color for adding color to shell scripts. Then I deprecated it in favor of a new library, dye, that fixed a number of things that bothered me about portable-color. dye eventually added its own built-in templating, which meant users could just print a string full o...

Previously, I showed how you can use JSDoc and jsconfig.json as a replacement for TypeScript style type checking — without a build step, no less. At the end of that post I teased an ESLint follow-up. And here we are, I’m happy you’re here. First Things First Before jumping in, I wanted to address a ...

I’ve never really been great at side questing in video games. In most games I play, I tend to lock in on the main storyline. The objective is clear, the path is defined, and progress feels measurable. Side quests exist but they get pushed off with the assumption that I’ll come back to them later. […...

Over the past 14 months on my current project with an AI startup, I’ve typed out an average novel length’s worth of meeting notes. Here’s a quick summary: Metric Value Total files (1 file per meeting) 132 Total words 77,967 Total characters 429,329 Average words per file ~590 Average characters per ...

I don’t know about most developers, but there is a very specific kind of sinking feeling you get when you join a project, clone a repo, and realize you’ve just inherited a total disaster. I’m talking about the kind of codebase where you don’t even know left from right: unhelpful generic variable nam...

In previous posts, I examined claims about “building a product in one day” and discussed my attempt to take a game from wireframe to working prototype. Here’s what happened next. By the time the game was fully built, tested, and stable, there was one step left that felt harder than anything technica...

In a previous post, I wrote about the idea of “launching a product in one day.” Today, let’s talk about how I took the initial idea and turned it into a working prototype. In the first phase of building my puzzle game, I wasn’t thinking about deployment or databases. I was thinking about mechanics, ...

If you spend any time on YouTube right now, you’ve probably seen the headlines: “I built a SaaS in 24 hours.” “AI built this app for me.” “From idea to launch overnight.” I genuinely enjoy those AI product development videos. They’re motivating. They make building feel accessible. They show what’s p...

My client team recently updated its code review policy: an approval from an AI tool is now all that’s needed to merge. In this post, I’ll reflect on this change and what it means for the way our team works together. My Personal Relationship with Code Review Reviewing PRs is one of my very favorite [...

When I joined Atomic Object nearly 16 years ago, I was drawn in by many factors: people who were generous with their time, interesting development tools and clients, personal connections, and wanting to work with the smartest people I could find. Threaded through all of that was a deep curiosity tha...

At Atomic Object, we build great software, and we partner with our clients to help them figure out what the right thing to be building is in the first place. As software consultants, we show up as strategic thought partners who bring perspective on direction, tradeoffs, and timing. Getting that righ...