Browse Curated Developer Resources on the Best Tools

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This course is perfect for those looking for a lightweight alternative to NgRx Store that scales effortlessly.

Tomasz Ducin

course

Scalable Signals Angular Architecture with NGRX Signal Store

Get started with Bootstrap by building a professional landing page.

Lucas Minter

Create Professional Responsive Websites using Bootstrap

Write TypeScript that will keep up with your application as it grows.

Domain Data Modeling using TypeScript Aliases, Brand Types and Value Objects

You’ll learn how to build a dynamic chat application using Fauna Streams and Next.js 14, focusing on the essentials and best practices.

Shadid Haque

Build a Real-time Next.js 14 Chat App with Fauna 

Learn the fundamentals of React Query (a.k.a TanStack Query) by going through the basic API and then implementing search in an employee tracking app.

Simplify State Management with React Query

Learn how the latest JavaScript features can help you improve your codebase.

Learn the Latest ECMAScript Features (ES2024, ES2023, ...)

Compose 3D scenes, models, and animations using familiar Vue components and directives, without having to dive into the complexities of Three.js.


Alvaro Saburido

Create Interactive 3D Experiences with TresJS

Learn everything you need to know to take advantage of signals and be prepared for signal-based components

Modernize State Management in Angular with Signals

Quickly get Supabase running on your machine and keep it in sync with a remote.

Ben Patton

Getting Started with Supabase Local Dev

Create the common types of builds for iOS and Android on EAS. Development builds for local development, Preview builds for internal testing, and Production builds for release.

Kadi Kraman

Build and Deploy React Native Apps with Expo EAS

Quickly develop your pages and components in isolation with Storybook

Michael Chan

A Beginner’s Guide to Storybook 7 with React

Master React Testing Library: Render components, enhance UI querying, optimize testing flow, handle events, & eliminate 'not wrapped in act' warnings.

Daniel Afonso

An Introduction to the React Testing Library

Build full stack applications with AWS CDK powered by TypeScript

Tomasz Łakomy

Full Stack TypeScript with AWS Cloud Development Kit v2

Learn how you can leverage the web platform to build dynamic, modern web apps with Astro while minimizing the JavaScript you send to the client.

Lazar Nikolov

Build a Full Stack Blog with Astro

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Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **28th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

Claude Haiku 4.5 dropped with impressive cost savings and speed improvements, OpenAI continues their infrastructure expansion with a major chip partnership, and we're seeing remarkable progress in AI's ability to tackle complex scientific problems.

Personally, I've been improving MCP/Hooks workflows in Cursor (and Claude Code) by authoring custom libraries for mcp servers and advanced hooks. These enable a lot of creativity and power around cost-savings and speed by offloading to different models, improving prompts by fetching context in the background, and much more. I'm very excited to share more about this in my Cursor workshop tomorrow.

🚨 THE CURSOR WORKSHOP IS **TOMORROW**! TICKET SALES END **TONIGHT**! 🚨
[https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)

---

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week?

I recently released **mcpez**, a new library that simplifies MCP (Model Context Protocol) local development and could reshape how you approach agentic development. The library makes it dramatically easier to build custom tools and integrations for AI agents.

🔗 **Check it out**: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/mcpez](https://www.npmjs.com/package/mcpez)

I've also been talking to the Cursor team about they're hooks setup so that I can push them a little further. I've got a few more lessons lined up that should be released early next week.

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Claude Haiku 4.5: Speed and Cost Efficiency Revolution

**Anthropic released Claude Haiku 4.5 on October 15, 2025, delivering near-frontier model performance at dramatically reduced costs and significantly faster speeds.**

Performance highlights:
- **Cost Efficiency**: Up to 90% cost savings with prompt caching, 50% with Message Batches API
- **Speed Improvements**: 4-5x faster than Sonnet 4.5 for real-time applications
- **Benchmark Performance**: 73.3% on SWE-bench Verified, achieving 90% of Sonnet 4.5's capabilities
- **Pricing**: $1 per million input tokens, $5 per million output tokens
- **Availability**: Claude Code, API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud Vertex AI

The model excels at computer use tasks, making Claude for Chrome significantly more responsive while maintaining high coding performance standards.

([Anthropic Official](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-haiku-4-5), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/15/anthropic-launches-new-version-of-scaled-down-haiku-model/), [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2025/10/claude-4-5-haiku-anthropic-amazon-bedrock/))

> *Definitely awesome at taking a plan and executing it. There's a certain feeling with a faster model and quicker feedback loops, where as a human in the loop, you can stay more engaged and more active in the project. So even if it does something wrong, you can give it feedback and quickly turn it around. It's definitely something you miss when waiting for larger, smarter models to work through problems. So I'm a huge fan of faster, smaller models.*


### OpenAI and Broadcom Announce 10 Gigawatt Chip Partnership

**OpenAI and Broadcom announced a strategic collaboration on October 13, 2025, to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI chips designed specifically for OpenAI's infrastructure needs.**

Partnership details:
- **Massive Scale**: 10 gigawatt deployment planned by 2029
- **Custom Design**: OpenAI-designed chips optimized for their specific workloads
- **Phased Rollout**: Manufacturing begins in 2026 with gradual deployment
- **Strategic Collaboration**: Combines OpenAI's AI expertise with Broadcom's chip manufacturing
- **Infrastructure Independence**: Reduces reliance on third-party chip providers

This represents OpenAI's most significant move toward vertical integration and infrastructure control.

([OpenAI Press Release](https://openai.com/index/openai-and-broadcom-announce-strategic-collaboration/), [Broadcom Investor Relations](https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/openai-and-broadcom-announce-strategic-collaboration-deploy-10))

> *10 gigawatts is like 5 Hoover Dams. Or 10x the power Doc needed to send the Delorean to the future. Or 2x the power of Los Angeles at its peak. All of that power going into AI. It's so easy to forget the sheer scale of the AI era when I'm sitting behind my computer complaining about AI-generated em dashes.*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Claude Code Introduces Plugin System in Public Beta

**Anthropic launched Claude Code Plugins in public beta on October 9, 2025, enabling developers to install and share curated collections of tools, agents, and automations.**

Plugin capabilities:
- **Comprehensive Tooling**: Slash commands, agents, MCP servers, and hooks in unified packages
- **Community Marketplace**: Share and discover plugins through centralized registry
- **Easy Installation**: One-command plugin installation via `/plugin` command
- **Developer Experience**: Streamlined setup for complex automation workflows
- **Team Collaboration**: Share standardized toolsets across development teams

The plugin system addresses the complexity of managing multiple AI development tools and configurations.

([Anthropic Claude Code](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/plugins))

> *Finally! Managing all the different MCPs, hooks, and custom commands was becoming a nightmare. Having a plugin system means I can package up my entire development workflow and share it with the team without everyone having to manually configure dozens of different tools.*

### Vercel v0 Integrates with Slack at Dreamforce 2025

**Vercel demonstrated v0's native Slack integration at Dreamforce 2025 on October 15, 2025, enabling AI-powered application development directly within Slack channels.**

Integration features:
- **Native Slack App**: Build and iterate on applications without leaving Slack
- **Team Collaboration**: Plaintext suggestions from team members directly actionable by v0
- **Rapid Prototyping**: Create landing pages and applications in conversational interface
- **Agentic OS Vision**: Part of Salesforce's broader AI platform strategy for workplace automation
- **Workflow Integration**: Seamless handoff between design, development, and deployment

The integration represents a significant shift toward conversational development workflows.

([Slack Blog](https://slack.com/blog/news/dreamforce-slack-native-ai), [Salesforce Press Release](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2025/10/13/agentic-enterprise-announcement/?bc=OTH))

> *I'm really curious what designs might look like when the barrier to feedback is lowered to posting a message to Slack on your phone. It's a little concerning that execs might start stepping on the designers toes, but the good execs should now be able to give much better actionable feedback. I love enabling people to share their ideas and anything we can do to move those ideas from text to visuals is a huge win IMO.*

---

## 🤖 AI Ecosystem Updates

### AI Models Achieve Gold Medal Performance in Astronomy Olympiad

**GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 Pro achieved gold medal performance in the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), marking a significant milestone in AI's scientific reasoning capabilities.**

Performance metrics:
- **GPT-5 Score**: 85.6% accuracy on IOAA competition problems
- **Gemini 2.5 Pro Score**: 84.2% accuracy, also achieving gold medal standard
- **Human Comparison**: Outperformed average human participants in complex astrophysics calculations
- **Problem Types**: Theoretical astrophysics, observational astronomy, and mathematical modeling
- **Research Validation**: Results published in peer-reviewed arXiv papers

This represents AI's growing capability in advanced scientific domains requiring complex mathematical reasoning.

([arXiv Research Paper](https://arxiv.org/html/2510.05016), [Google DeepMind Blog](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/advanced-version-of-gemini-with-deep-think-officially-achieves-gold-medal-standard-at-the-international-mathematical-olympiad/))

> *AI is smarter than me. I get it. But I think it's incredible that the leading labs struggle to find people smart enough to check on the work from the AI. I know they keep promising to "cure cancer" and I take those statements with a healthy dose of skepticism, but what if they do...*

### Google's C2S-Scale 27B Model Generates Novel Cancer Research Hypothesis

**Google and Yale University's C2S-Scale 27B parameter model generated and experimentally validated a novel hypothesis about cancer cellular behavior, demonstrating AI's potential for scientific discovery.**

Research breakthrough:
- **Novel Hypothesis**: Identified drug combination (silmitasertib) to enhance tumor visibility to immune system
- **Experimental Validation**: Successfully tested hypothesis in living cancer cells
- **Model Architecture**: 27 billion parameters trained on biomedical research data
- **Collaborative Research**: Joint effort between Google DeepMind and Yale medical researchers
- **Open Science**: Model and findings made available to broader research community

The work represents a significant step toward AI-driven scientific hypothesis generation and testing.

([Interesting Engineering](https://interestingengineering.com/health/google-deepmind-new-ai-cancer-treatment), [Google Blog](https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemma-ai-cancer-therapy-discovery/))

> *This is exactly the kind of AI application that gets me excited. Rather than just optimizing existing processes, the AI actually generated new scientific insights that researchers could test and validate. It's a preview of how AI might accelerate scientific discovery by exploring hypothesis spaces that humans might not think to investigate. We don't know what we don't know!*

### NotebookLM Introduces Visual Styles for Video Overviews

**Google launched six new visual styles for NotebookLM's Video Overviews on October 13, 2025, powered by the Nano Banana image generation model.**

New features:
- **Visual Styles**: Watercolor, Papercraft, Anime, Whiteboard, Retro Print, and Heritage aesthetics
- **Video Formats**: New "Explainer" and "Brief" options for different content needs
- **Nano Banana Integration**: Leverages Gemini's image generation for consistent visual themes
- **Rollout Timeline**: Available to Pro users first, expanding to all users in coming weeks
- **Content Personalization**: Customizable presentation styles for different audiences

The update significantly enhances NotebookLM's content creation capabilities for educational and professional use.

([9to5Google](https://9to5google.com/2025/10/13/notebooklm-video-overviews-styles/), [Google Labs Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/video-overviews-nano-banana/))

> *My main struggle with NotebookLM (which I love dearly) is the fact that I'm learning so many new things all at the same time. I never make time to follow-up or study to help solidify the knowledge. I just expect the AI to be able to recall it for me. I'm loving the video overviews to help the knowledge stick more during the first pass.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### OpenAI Announces Relaxed ChatGPT Content Restrictions
- **Policy Changes**: Reduced mental health restrictions for general users
- **Personality Options**: More human-like interactions and emoji usage coming soon
- **Adult Content**: Erotica allowed for verified adults starting December 2025
- **User Choice**: Opt-in system for personality changes, not default behavior

([Official Statement](https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-content-policy-updates))

### Amp Code Becomes Free with Ad-Supported Model
- **Free Tier**: All core coding features available without subscription
- **Ad Support**: Revenue through developer tool partner advertisements
- **CLI Access**: Available via `/mode free` command or editor extension
- **Community Focus**: Expanding access to agentic coding tools

([Amp Code Blog](https://ampcode.com/news/amp-free))

### Andrej Karpathy Releases NanoChat Training Pipeline
- **Open Source**: Complete LLM training pipeline in 8,000 lines of code
- **Cost Effective**: Train a ChatGPT clone for as little as $100 in 4 hours
- **Educational Focus**: Designed for LLM101n course and research harness
- **Full Stack**: Covers tokenization, pretraining, fine-tuning, and inference

([GitHub Repository](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat))

### Microsoft Hires Jared Palmer as VP of CoreAI
- **New Role**: VP of CoreAI and SVP of GitHub focusing on developer experience
- **Strategic Focus**: Building integrated AI tools across GitHub, VS Code, and Azure
- **Industry Background**: Former creator of popular React development tools
- **Platform Integration**: Emphasis on unified developer experience across Microsoft AI platforms

### n8n Raises $180M Series C at $2.5B Valuation
- **Funding Round**: Led by Accel with multiple strategic investors
- **Total Funding**: $240 million raised to date
- **Market Position**: Leading workflow automation platform for AI integration
- **Growth Focus**: Expanding AI-native automation capabilities

([n8n Press Release](https://n8n.io/blog/series-c-funding/))

### Google Launches Gemini Enterprise for Workplace AI
- **Enterprise Platform**: AI agents for workplace automation starting at $30/user/month
- **Integration Support**: Works with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and SAP
- **Agent Capabilities**: Custom AI agents for department-specific workflows
- **October Launch**: Generally available as of October 9, 2025

([CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/09/google-launches-gemini-enterprise-to-boost-ai-agent-use-at-work.html), [Google Cloud Blog](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/introducing-gemini-enterprise))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### 🚨 TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO BUY TICKETS! 🚨 Cursor Workshop - Friday, October 17th, 2025

**Become a Cursor Power User**

In just a single day you'll set up shared rules, optimized workflows, and custom agents to help you ship AI-generated code with confidence.

**Date:** October 17, 2025
**Time:** 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM (PDT)
**Platform:** Zoom

**What You'll Learn:**

The AI development landscape continues evolving rapidly with new models, tools, and best practices. This workshop teaches fundamental principles and repeatable workflows that work regardless of which tool you use—Cursor, Claude Code, WindSurf, or the next breakthrough.

**Essential Skills:**
- **Planning & Cursor Rules**: Refine workflows with custom rules and systematic planning
- **Context Engineering**: Learn the best practices around gathering context to solve the toughest problems
- **Logging & Feedback Loops**: Capture the output of your apps to create feedback loops
- **UI Design**: Using the Chrome Dev Tools MCP to iterate on design and debug the browser
- **Agent Pipelines**: Create specialized workflows with hooks and mcps to automate difficult tasks

**Register: [https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)**

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

John Lindquist

AI Dev Essentials #28: Claude Haiku 4.5 & OpenAI's Big Move

Anthropic's Claude Haiku 4.5 delivers major speed and cost savings, while OpenAI and Broadcom announce a massive custom AI chip partnership.

## The Mental Model Shift

The tools we use dictate how we think. Before React, we thought about manipulating individual elements. React taught us to think in components and state. Today, we think about calling APIs and manually handling responses. The AI SDK is teaching us to think in streams and intelligent interfaces.

---

AI development today feels like JavaScript in 2012.

In 2012, we were using jQuery to imperatively manipulate the DOM. We focused on the *how* (updating elements) rather than the *what* (the desired UI state).

Today, we are imperatively manipulating the outputs of LLMs. We are focused on the mechanics of integration, not the intelligence itself.

React introduced a declarative model and the right abstractions (Virtual DOM, components). It defined the era. The Vercel AI SDK is doing the same for the intelligence layer.

## The AI SDK Is Already Establishing Dominance

React won because it shifted developers from imperative DOM manipulation to declarative state management. Today's AI tools largely keep developers stuck in an imperative mindset, focusing on the *how* of integration rather than the *what* of the intelligent feature. The AI SDK is changing this paradigm.

### 1. Imperative Plumbing (Provider SDKs)
Using direct SDKs (like `openai`).

**The Mindset:** This approach is purely imperative. You manually initiate the `fetch`, explicitly parse the stream chunks, handle connection errors, and write the logic to update your application state step-by-step. The focus is entirely on the mechanics of the connection.

### 2. Complex Configuration (LangChain JS)
Using comprehensive backend frameworks.

**The Mindset:** While aiming for higher-level outcomes, the implementation often involves complex chaining (like LCEL) and deep configuration. The steep learning curve means the developer's focus remains on configuring the framework rather than the application's core logic.

**The AI SDK's advantage:** It introduces a declarative model for the intelligence layer. Primitives like `streamText` (for backends/CLIs) and `useChat` (for frontends) abstract the entire imperative lifecycle of a streaming connection. Crucially, this declarative approach is universal. Whether you are rendering a UI, automating a CLI task, or coordinating backend agents, the mental model remains the same: define your inputs and tools, and let the SDK manage the execution flow.

## The Declarative Shift

The AI SDK focuses on UI-native primitives.

### useChat

The `useChat` hook abstracts the entire imperative lifecycle of a streaming connection.

```javascript
'use client';

import { useState } from 'react';
import { useChat } from '@ai-sdk/react';

export default function Chat() {
  const { messages, sendMessage, isLoading } = useChat();
  const [input, setInput] = useState('');

  return (
    <div>
      {/* You just map over the messages */}
      {messages.map(m => (
        <div key={m.id}>
          {m.parts?.map((part, i) => 
            'text' in part ? <span key={i}>{part.text}</span> : null
          )}
        </div>
      ))}

      <form onSubmit={(e) => {
        e.preventDefault();
        if (input.trim()) {
          sendMessage(input);
          setInput('');
        }
      }}>
        <input 
          value={input} 
          onChange={(e) => setInput(e.target.value)}
          disabled={isLoading}
        />
      </form>
    </div>
  );
}
```

The mechanics (fetch, SSE parsing, state updates, re-renders) are handled. You focus on rendering the messages.

## The Unified Interface (The Virtual DOM for AI)

The model landscape is volatile. Vercel recently reported that 65% of developers switched LLM providers in the last six months. Lock-in is a liability.

The AI SDK provides a provider-agnostic API. It acts as a stable abstraction layer over disparate models.

```typescript
// app/api/chat/route.ts
import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
// import { anthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';
import { streamText, convertToModelMessages } from 'ai';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const { messages: uiMessages } = await req.json();

  const result = await streamText({
    // The model is just a configuration detail.
    model: openai('gpt-5'),
    // model: anthropic('claude-3-5-sonnet-20250113'),
    messages: convertToModelMessages(uiMessages),
  });

  return result.toUIMessageStreamResponse({ originalMessages: uiMessages });
}
```

Switching providers requires changing one line of code.

## The Emerging Standard

The ecosystem is consolidating around the AI SDK.

**By the Numbers:**
 * **ai** (Vercel AI SDK): Over 3.6 million weekly downloads (October 2025)
 * The AI SDK has become the dominant choice for AI integration in JavaScript/TypeScript

**Ecosystem Endorsement:**
 * **Cloudflare:** Dedicated [Workers AI documentation](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/configuration/ai-sdk/) and [AI Gateway integration guides](https://developers.cloudflare.com/ai-gateway/integrations/vercel-ai-sdk/)
 * **Anthropic:** [Official collaboration on Claude Sonnet 4.5](https://vercel.com/blog/collaborating-with-anthropic-on-claude-sonnet-4-5) and co-developed Coding Agent Platform template
 * **OpenAI:** [Agents SDK documentation](https://openai.github.io/openai-agents-js/extensions/ai-sdk/) includes official AI SDK adapter
 * **AWS:** [Partnership announcement](https://vercel.com/blog/vercel-and-aws-partner-on-ai-tools-and-experiences) with Bedrock support and v0 on AWS Marketplace

**Provider Support:** First-party providers for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, xAI, Groq, Cohere, Together AI, Amazon Bedrock, Replicate, Perplexity, and dozens more.

## Beyond the Browser: Agents and Orchestration

React made UIs declarative. The AI SDK does that **and** gives you a declarative runtime for backends, CLIs, and multi-agent systems. The same primitives that power `useChat` (`streamText`, tools, and the `Agent` class) run seamlessly in Node, enabling you to build everything from streaming CLIs to enterprise-scale agent orchestration—without heavy frameworks.

### Why This Matters

**One mental model, everywhere.** The same streaming and tool-calling APIs work in Next.js routes and in Node/CLI scripts. No extra plumbing for SSE, retries, or tool schemas.

**Agent loops without boilerplate.** The `Agent` class encapsulates tool loops, stopping conditions, and step control. What used to require complex state machines becomes a few lines of declarative code.

**Scale from personal tools to enterprise orchestration.** Build a CLI tool for yourself, then use the exact same patterns to coordinate dozens of agents in production. The abstractions scale.

### A Personal CLI in 20 Lines

Here's a simple streaming CLI that searches and summarizes news. This is a complete, working tool you can build in minutes:

```typescript
import { anthropic } from '@ai-sdk/anthropic';
import { streamText, tool } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const result = streamText({
  model: anthropic('claude-3-5-sonnet-20250113'),
  prompt: 'What are the latest developments in AI this week?',
  tools: {
    search: tool({
      description: 'Search the web for current information',
      inputSchema: z.object({
        query: z.string(),
      }),
      execute: async ({ query }) => {
        // Replace with actual search API
        return { results: `Mock results for: ${query}` };
      },
    }),
  },
});

// Stream tokens directly to terminal
for await (const textPart of result.textStream) {
  process.stdout.write(textPart);
}
```

No manual fetch calls. No SSE parsing. No state management. You define a tool, pass it to `streamText`, and watch the LLM use it automatically. The same pattern works with any model—swap `anthropic()` for `openai('gpt-5')` or `google('gemini-2.5-flash')` and it just works.

### Multi-Agent Orchestration in ~80 Lines

The same primitives scale to complex multi-agent systems. Here's a complete orchestrator pattern: a main agent delegates to specialized workers (researcher, reviewer) through typed tools. This is the same architecture that scales to enterprise workflows—just replace the stubbed tools with calls to your SDKs, databases, and services.

```typescript
import { z } from 'zod';
import { google } from '@ai-sdk/google';
import { Experimental_Agent as Agent, stepCountIs, tool } from 'ai';

// Specialized worker agents
const researcher = new Agent({
  model: google('gemini-2.5-flash'),
  system: 'You are a concise researcher. Return bullet points and cite sources.',
  stopWhen: stepCountIs(5),
});

const reviewer = new Agent({
  model: google('gemini-2.5-flash'),
  system: 'You are a strict reviewer. Produce a short checklist and verdict.',
  stopWhen: stepCountIs(4),
});

const workers = { researcher, reviewer } as const;

// Orchestrator that delegates via tools
const orchestrator = new Agent({
  model: google('gemini-2.5-pro'),
  system: 'Break the user goal into sub-tasks. Delegate to specialists via tools.',
  tools: {
    callAgent: tool({
      description: 'Delegate a sub-task to a specialized agent.',
      inputSchema: z.object({
        to: z.enum(['researcher', 'reviewer']),
        task: z.string(),
      }),
      execute: async ({ to, task }) => {
        const target = to === 'researcher' ? researcher : reviewer;
        const res = await target.generate({ prompt: task });
        return { from: to, output: res.text };
      },
    }),
  },
  stopWhen: stepCountIs(20),
});

// Stream results to the terminal
const stream = orchestrator.stream({ 
  prompt: 'Compare two logging libraries and recommend one.' 
});

for await (const token of stream.textStream) {
  process.stdout.write(token);
}
```

No manual SSE parsing. No ad-hoc state management. The orchestrator delegates work through a **typed tool interface**—the same primitive you use in your web app.

Want to swap models? Change one line: `anthropic('claude-3-5-sonnet-20250113')` or `openai('gpt-5')`. The provider abstraction works identically in the backend.

### From CLI to Enterprise

This pattern scales:

**Personal CLI:** A single agent with a few tools to automate your workflows.

**Team Automation:** Multiple specialized agents coordinating through an orchestrator.

**Enterprise Orchestration:** Dozens of agents managing complex workflows, each wrapped behind tool interfaces—search, vector DBs, billing systems, deployment pipelines, code execution (via Vercel Sandbox for safety).

The AI SDK provides **stop conditions** (`stopWhen`) to bound agent loops and **structured outputs** (`generateObject`) where determinism matters. You define tools once, and any model can call them.

The headline: The AI SDK isn't "just a React hook." It's the interaction layer for your browser, your CLI, and your agentic backends—with a unified mental model for streams, tools, and multi-step loops.

## The Next Paradigm: Generative UI

The SDK moves beyond streaming text. It enables streaming *interfaces*.

By integrating with React Server Components (RSC), the LLM doesn't just return text—it can dynamically decide which component to render based on the user's intent. The AI becomes the engine driving the UI.

**Note:** AI SDK RSC is currently experimental. For production chat applications, the AI SDK UI (`useChat`) is recommended.

### From Static Responses to Dynamic Interfaces

**Traditional approach:** User asks "Show me AAPL stock performance." The LLM returns text describing the stock's current state.

**Generative UI approach:** The LLM analyzes the intent and streams back an interactive component:

```typescript
// app/api/chat/route.ts
import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { streamUI } from '@ai-sdk/rsc';
import { z } from 'zod';
import { StockChart } from '@/components/stock-chart';
import { WeatherWidget } from '@/components/weather-widget';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const { messages } = await req.json();

  const result = await streamUI({
    model: openai('gpt-5'),
    messages,
    text: ({ content }) => <div>{content}</div>,
    tools: {
      showStockChart: {
        description: 'Display an interactive stock chart for a given symbol',
        parameters: z.object({
          symbol: z.string().describe('Stock ticker symbol'),
          period: z.enum(['1D', '1W', '1M', '1Y']),
        }),
        generate: async function* ({ symbol, period }) {
          // Stream loading state first
          yield <div>Loading {symbol} data...</div>;
          
          // Fetch data
          const data = await fetchStockData(symbol, period);
          
          // Stream the actual component
          return (
            <StockChart 
              symbol={symbol}
              data={data}
              period={period}
              interactive
            />
          );
        },
      },
      showWeather: {
        description: 'Display current weather for a location',
        parameters: z.object({
          location: z.string(),
        }),
        generate: async function* ({ location }) {
          yield <div>Fetching weather for {location}...</div>;
          const weather = await fetchWeather(location);
          return <WeatherWidget location={location} data={weather} />;
        },
      },
    },
  });

  return result.toAIStreamResponse();
}
```

On the client, components stream in seamlessly:

```typescript
// app/page.tsx
'use client';

import { useState } from 'react';
import { useChat } from '@ai-sdk/react';

export default function Page() {
  const { messages, sendMessage } = useChat();
  const [input, setInput] = useState('');

  return (
    <div>
      {messages.map(m => (
        <div key={m.id}>
          {m.role === 'user' ? (
            m.parts?.map((part, i) => 
              'text' in part ? <span key={i}>{part.text}</span> : null
            )
          ) : (
            m.parts?.map((part, i) => 
              'toolResult' in part ? part.toolResult : null
            )
          )}
        </div>
      ))}
      
      <form onSubmit={(e) => {
        e.preventDefault();
        if (input.trim()) {
          sendMessage(input);
          setInput('');
        }
      }}>
        <input 
          value={input} 
          onChange={(e) => setInput(e.target.value)}
        />
      </form>
    </div>
  );
}
```

**What happens:**
1. User types: "Show me AAPL stock performance for the past month"
2. The LLM recognizes the intent and calls the `showStockChart` tool
3. The tool streams a loading state, then the interactive `<StockChart />` component
4. The component appears in the chat—fully interactive, with real data

The interface *is* the response. No manual component selection logic. No conditional rendering. The AI decides the right interface for the context.

This is the foundation of products like Vercel's V0, where users describe what they want and receive not just code, but working, interactive prototypes.

---

React taught us to think in components and state.

The AI SDK is teaching us to think in streams and intelligent, dynamic interfaces—from the browser to the backend.

It provides the right abstractions at the right time. That is how you define an era.

React Defined the Web. The AI SDK Will Define AI

The Vercel AI SDK is creating a "React moment" for AI development, shifting focus from imperative code to a declarative model for building streaming, gen UIs.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **27th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

OpenAI's Dev Day introduced new developer tools and APIs and Google launched updates across the Gemini CLI and the rest of their AI offerings. Never a dull week in AI-land!

I was able to attend OpenAI's Dev Day in San Francisco on Monday. It was great to finally meet people from both the Cursor team and the OpenAI Codex team in person. It's great to be able to sit down with people you spend so much time with online.

With all of the recent updates with Cursor over the past few months and with many requests from the community, I'm relaunching my Cursor workshops! To kick things off, I published the first eight lessons of a Advanced Cursor Hooks Course. They're available for free on egghead.io here: [https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-cursor-hooks~swp89](https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-cursor-hooks~swp89)

If you want to level up your Cursor skills with shared rules, agent workflows, and production-ready patterns, check out the details in the Workshop Spotlight section below.

**Register: [https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)**

---

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

I published the first eight lessons of the *free* "Advanced Cursor Hooks" course:

1. Capture Agent Context with Your First Cursor Hook
2. Debugging Cursor Hooks with Output Panels
3. Simplify Cursor Hooks Configuration with JSON Schema
4. Level Up Cursor Hooks with TypeScript and Bun
5. Type-Safe Cursor Hooks with the cursor-hooks Package
6. Enforce Cursor Tooling Standards with beforeShellExecution
7. Automate Cursor Code Quality with afterFileEdit
8. Logging and Debugging Cursor Hooks

👀 Watch the lessons here: [https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-cursor-hooks~swp89](https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-cursor-hooks~swp89)

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### OpenAI Dev Day 2025 Expands Developer Platform

**OpenAI hosted Dev Day 2025 on October 6, 2025, announcing new APIs, models, and developer tools that expand the platform's capabilities for building AI applications.**

Key announcements:
- **Apps in ChatGPT with Apps SDK**: Built on Model Context Protocol (MCP), enables developers to build and test apps in ChatGPT with app submissions opening later in 2025
- **GPT-5 Pro in API**: Extended reasoning model now available for developers' hardest tasks
- **Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro in API**: Video generation models in preview with limited access
- **AgentKit Platform**: Complete toolkit including ChatKit (embeddable chat UI), Agent Builder (WYSIWYG workflow creator), Connector Registry, and Enhanced Evaluations
- **Codex General Availability**: Cloud coding agent with Slack integration, SDK, and admin tools (cloud tasks billable starting Oct 20)
- **New Mini Models**: gpt-image-1-mini (80% cheaper image generation), gpt-realtime-mini (70% cheaper voice model)
- **Infrastructure Updates**: Service health dashboard for API monitoring, GPT-5 40% faster on priority processing tier

([OpenAI Dev Day](https://openai.com/Dev Day/), [OpenAI Apps SDK](https://openai.com/index/introducing-apps-in-chatgpt/), [OpenAI AgentKit](https://openai.com/index/introducing-agentkit/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/openai-ramps-up-developer-push-with-more-powerful-models-in-its-api/))

> *Honestly, no huge surprises here. Most everything had already been released or announced, so it was lot of recaps. The ChatKits annoucement was interesting and I imagine we'll all have to take it fairly seriously considering their reach of hundreds of millions of users.*

 > *Codex stole the show as it was mentioned everywhere. The highlight for me personally was hearing Jony Ive talk about his work on the future devices for OpenAI. Definitely check out the recording on YouTube to here his thoughts on the future of devices. I loved that he touched on that not everything has to be so serious and focused on productivity. Life should be fun! I hope whatever they come up with helps humanity reconnect with each other rather than being just another "tool" to do more work.*

### Google Launches Extensions Ecosystem for Gemini CLI

**Google announced the Gemini CLI Extensions system on October 8, 2025, introducing a one-command installation framework that packages MCP servers, context files, and custom commands for AI-assisted development.**

Platform features:
- **One-Command Installation**: Install extensions from GitHub repositories with `gemini extensions install <URL>`
- **22 Launch Partners**: Including Atlassian, Canva, Dynatrace, Elastic, Figma, GitLab, Harness, Postman, Shopify, Snyk, Stripe, and others
- **MCP Integration**: Extensions can package and connect to Model Context Protocol servers
- **Open Ecosystem**: No Google approval required for publishing extensions, hosted in public GitHub repositories
- **Million+ Developers**: Over 1 million developers already using Gemini CLI as of announcement

([Google Blog](https://blog.google/technology/developers/gemini-cli-extensions/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/08/google-launches-extensions-system-for-its-command-line-coding-tool/), [SD Times](https://sdtimes.com/softwaredev/google-launches-ecosystem-of-extensions-for-gemini-cli/))

> *I've been wanting plugin ecosystems for these tools for a long time. Everything I've built with custom agents and bundling tools always feels like I'm fighting against the tools. I'm so happy Gemini is taking the initiative here and I hope the other tools follow suit.*

### Google DeepMind Unveils Gemini 2.5 Computer Use Model

**Google DeepMind released Gemini 2.5 Computer Use on October 7, 2025, a specialized browser control model developed in partnership with Browserbase that can navigate web interfaces like a human.**

Model capabilities:
- **State-of-the-Art Browser Control**: Leads on Online-Mind2Web benchmark according to Browserbase evaluation
- **13 UI Actions**: Supports clicking, typing, scrolling, and other predefined interface interactions
- **Complex Navigation**: Can operate behind login screens and interact with complex UI elements
- **Public Preview**: Available through Gemini API on Google AI Studio and Vertex AI
- **Browserbase Partnership**: Helped train, evaluate, and deploy the model; provides demo environment and testing infrastructure

([Google DeepMind Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/gemini-computer-use-model/), [Browserbase Blog](https://www.browserbase.com/blog/evaluating-browser-agents), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/googles-ai-can-now-surf-the-web-for-you-click-on-buttons-and-fill-out-forms))

> *You don't realize how insanely useful a computer use model is until you find the right scenario. I recently had ChatGPT do a deep research on myself, then copy/pasted it into a beta for Claude's Chrome extension. The extension filled out my entire profile for me, adding all the details, education, and work experience while dismissing all of the annoying popups and dialogs. It was awesome. Such a tedious task and I just got to sit back and watch it happen.*

### Anthropic Names Rahul Patil as New CTO

**Anthropic announced on October 7, 2025, that Rahul Patil, former CTO of Stripe, has joined as Chief Technology Officer, with co-founder Sam McCandlish transitioning to Chief Architect.**

Leadership changes:
- **Rahul Patil as CTO**: Will oversee engineering organization across product, compute, infrastructure, inference, data science, and security
- **Sam McCandlish as Chief Architect**: Focuses on pre-training and large-scale model training
- **Stripe Experience**: Patil guided Stripe's technical organization supporting trillions of dollars in annual processing
- **20+ Years Experience**: Previous roles at AWS, Microsoft, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

([Anthropic Official](https://www.anthropic.com/news/rahul-patil-joins-anthropic), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/02/anthropic-hires-new-cto-with-focus-on-ai-infrastructure/))

> *Sounds like a good hire. I can't think of many companies that require as much performance and reliability as Stripe. Hopefully the skills transfer and we'll see Anthropic take the next step.*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Genkit Extension for Gemini CLI Enhances AI Development

**Google released the Genkit Extension for Gemini CLI on October 8, 2025, providing context-aware assistance for building AI applications with the Genkit framework.**

Extension features:
- **Context-Aware Assistance**: Intelligent code generation specific to Genkit development patterns
- **Debugging Support**: Built-in debugging guidance for common Genkit issues
- **Best Practices**: Framework-specific recommendations and patterns
- **MCP Integration**: Bundles Genkit's MCP server with specialized context files
- **One-Command Install**: `gemini extensions install https://github.com/gemini-cli-extensions/genkit`

([Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/announcing-the-genkit-extension-for-gemini-cli/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/08/google-launches-extensions-system-for-its-command-line-coding-tool/))

### Jules Tools and Jules API Bring Agent to Terminal and CI/CD

**Google introduced Jules Tools and Jules API on October 2, 2025, extending the Jules coding agent beyond the web interface into developer workflows.**

New capabilities:
- **Jules Tools CLI**: Command-line interface bringing Jules directly into the terminal
- **Jules API**: Public API for integrating Jules into CI/CD pipelines, Slack, Jira, and other tools
- **Developer-First Approach**: Director of Product Kathy Korevec noted "developers live in the terminal"
- **Workflow Integration**: Enables Jules to participate in existing development workflows

([Google Labs Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/jules-tools-jules-api/), [Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/level-up-your-dev-game-the-jules-api-is-here/), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/googles-jules-coding-agent-moves-beyond-chat-with-new-command-line-and-api))

### Vercel Academy Launches AI SDK Course

**Vercel Academy released "Builders Guide to the AI SDK," a free comprehensive course created by Joel Hooks and Nico Albanese covering AI fundamentals and practical implementation patterns.**

Course structure:
- **Three Main Sections**: Foundations, Invisible AI, Conversational AI
- **Topics Covered**: AI Elements, tool calling, data extraction, streaming responses
- **Tech Stack**: Built with TypeScript, React, and Next.js
- **Free and Open Source**: Available at vercel.com/academy/ai-sdk

([Vercel Academy](https://vercel.com/academy/ai-sdk))

> *Joel Hooks always delivers quality materials (and he's also a wonderful person). Definitely check this out if you're looking to get started with the AI SDK.*

---

## 🤖 AI Ecosystem Updates

### Ling-1T: Trillion-Parameter Efficient Reasoning Model

**Ant Group's inclusionAI released Ling-1T on October 8, 2025, the first flagship non-thinking model in the Ling 2.0 series featuring 1 trillion total parameters with approximately 50 billion active per token.**

Model highlights:
- **Scale and Efficiency**: 1T total parameters, ~50B active per token, trained on 20T+ reasoning-dense tokens
- **Evo-CoT Training**: Evolutionary Chain-of-Thought curriculum with Linguistics-Unit RL
- **FP8 Precision**: Largest FP8 mixed-precision trained foundation model to date
- **Benchmark Performance**: #1 among open models on ArtifactsBench, ~70% accuracy on BFCL V3 tool-use benchmarks
- **Availability**: Released on HuggingFace (inclusionAI/Ling-1T) and ZenMux

([HuggingFace](https://huggingface.co/inclusionAI/Ling-1T), [FP8 Training Blog](https://huggingface.co/blog/im0qianqian/ling-mini-2-fp8-mixed-precision-training-solution))

### Google DeepMind's CodeMender Automates Security Patching

**Google DeepMind introduced CodeMender on October 6, 2025, an AI agent powered by Gemini Deep Think that autonomously identifies and patches software vulnerabilities at scale.**

System capabilities:
- **Dual Approach**: Combines reactive patching and proactive vulnerability elimination
- **Advanced Analysis**: Uses static analysis, dynamic analysis, fuzzing, and SMT solvers
- **Scale**: Handles codebases up to 4.5 million lines, upstreamed 72 security fixes to open source
- **Validation**: Ensures patches fix root causes, maintain functionality, and follow style guidelines
- **Production Ready**: Six months of real-world deployment and testing

([Google DeepMind](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/introducing-codemender-an-ai-agent-for-code-security/), [SiliconANGLE](https://siliconangle.com/2025/10/06/google-deepmind-unveils-codemender-ai-agent-autonomously-patches-software-vulnerabilities/))

> *Self-healding code is one of the next big unlocks with AI. It's strange to think of how hackers battled each other in the past and now we'll have malicious AIs battling these defensive AIs to keep software secure. It's some real sci-fi movie stuff, but without all the music and drama.*

### Claude Memory Cookbook Provides Implementation Patterns

**Anthropic released a comprehensive memory implementation cookbook on October 7, 2025, demonstrating how to use the new memory tool that stores information outside the context window.**

Memory system features:
- **File-Based Persistence**: Memory stored in dedicated directory that persists across conversations
- **CRUD Operations**: Create, read, update, and delete memory files
- **Client-Side Control**: Developers manage storage backend and retention policies
- **Security Considerations**: Cookbook covers memory validation and sanitization
- **Multiple Patterns**: Examples cover basic memory, compactify memory, file-based memory

([Anthropic](https://www.anthropic.com/news/context-management), [GitHub Cookbook](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-cookbooks/blob/main/tool_use/memory_cookbook.ipynb))

> *Memory is tough. We all know it's a critical feature, but what should the tools remember and when should they recall them are tricky problems. Glad to see Anthropic taking the time to write this cookbook.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### ElevenLabs Releases Open Source UI Components
- **22 Audio Components**: MIT-licensed React components for chat, transcription, waveforms, music
- **Built on shadcn/ui**: Fully customizable component library
- **Ready to Ship**: Drop-in components for voice agents and audio applications
- **Available Now**: ui.elevenlabs.io and GitHub

([ElevenLabs Blog](https://elevenlabs.io/blog/elevenlabs-ui), [GitHub](https://github.com/elevenlabs/ui))

### Vercel AI Elements Now Open Source
- **Announced August 6, 2025**: Component library for AI SDK applications
- **Built on shadcn/ui**: Prebuilt, customizable React components
- **AI-Native Design**: Components specifically designed for AI interactions
- **Free Access**: Available via GitHub

([Vercel Changelog](https://vercel.com/changelog/introducing-ai-elements), [GitHub](https://github.com/vercel/ai-elements))

### Claude Code Mobile in Development
- **Mobile Preparation**: Industry reports indicate Anthropic preparing Claude Code for mobile
- **GitHub Integration**: Connect to repositories from mobile devices
- **On-the-Go Coding**: Run coding prompts from phones
- **No Official Date**: Release timeline not yet announced

([TestingCatalog](https://www.testingcatalog.com/anthropic-prepares-claude-code-release-for-mobile-apps/))

### GPT-5 Pro Expected for Perplexity MAX
- **API Access Announced**: GPT-5 Pro available via OpenAI API after Dev Day
- **Perplexity Integration**: Expected to add support for MAX subscribers
- **Following Pattern**: Perplexity typically integrates latest OpenAI models quickly
- **Highest Capability**: GPT-5 Pro is OpenAI's most advanced API model

([OpenAI Dev Day](https://openai.com/Dev Day/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/what-to-expect-at-openais-Dev Day-2025-and-how-to-watch-it/))

### Building Claude Code with AI
- **Pragmatic Engineer Feature**: Gergely Orosz interviewed Claude Code team
- **90% AI-Written**: Claude Code's codebase is 90% written by AI
- **High Velocity**: Team ships ~5 PRs per engineer daily
- **AI-First Workflow**: Extensive use of AI agents throughout development

([Pragmatic Engineer](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-claude-code-is-built))

---

## 👆 Cursor Corner

### Eric Zakariasson on Working with Coding Agents

**Cursor team member Eric Zakariasson published "Working with coding agents" on October 2, 2025, a comprehensive guide covering the fundamentals of effective AI-assisted development.**

Key topics covered:
- **Prompting**: Communicating intent and mental models to agents
- **Context**: Providing proper background and constraints
- **Self Verification**: Enabling agents to validate their own work
- **Model Selection**: Choosing between speed and intelligence
- **Background Agents**: Running long tasks autonomously
- **Parallel Agents**: His recommendation: 1-3 agents for optimal throughput while maintaining oversight

([anyblockers.com](https://anyblockers.com/posts/working-with-coding-agents))

> *Eric's recommendation of 1-3 parallel agents aligns with my experience. Beyond three agents, context switching overhead outweighs productivity gains. The emphasis on self-verification through tests and linting provides necessary feedback loops for improving agent outputs. His distinction between faster models for maintaining flow versus slower models for background work addresses practical tradeoffs in model selection.*

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### Cursor Workshop - October 17th, 2025

**Early Bird Pricing: $225 (Save 25% from $300) - Ends Friday!**

**Date:** October 17, 2025
**Time:** 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM (PDT)
**Platform:** Zoom

In just a single day you'll set up shared rules, optimized workflows, and agent mastery to help you ship AI-generated code with confidence.

**Testimonials:**
- Kent C. Dodds: "One-shot OAuth in minutes."
- David Wells: "🔥 Highly recommend."
- Sunil Pai: "John is the Cursor god."

**What You'll Learn:**

The AI development landscape shifts daily with new models, tools, and best practices. This workshop teaches fundamental principles and repeatable workflows that work regardless of which tool you use—Cursor, WindSurf, Kiro, Cline, or the next hot thing.

**Essential Skills:**
- **Project Generation Mastery**: Accelerate from zero to structured codebase with best practices
- **Planning & Cursor Rules**: Refine workflows with custom rules and step-by-step planning
- **Bulk Code Analysis & Bugfinding**: Leverage specialized debugging tools to isolate errors fast
- **Logging & Feedback Loops**: Pipe error logs and test outputs directly into Chat or Composer
- **Refactoring & UI Checks**: Use AI to systematically review code quality and front-end design
- **Agent Toolchain Pipelines**: Create specialized workflows that automate terminal tasks

**Register: [https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)**

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #27: OpenAI Dev Day, Google's Gemini CLI & Anthropic's New CTO

Get the latest on OpenAI Dev Day, Google Gemini updates, and new tools. Plus, a free course & workshop to master Cursor.

Learn the art of automating your AI-assisted development workflow by building custom hooks that intercept, modify, and enhance how Cursor's AI agent interacts with your codebase.

## Course Overview

Cursor hooks are a powerful automation framework that allows you to run custom scripts in response to AI agent actions. This course takes you from creating your first simple hook to building a production-ready, type-safe automation system using TypeScript and Bun.

You'll learn how to intercept file operations, control shell executions, automatically format AI-generated code, and implement robust logging all while building practical, real-world integrations that enforce your project's standards and streamline your development workflow.

## What You'll Learn

- Set up and configure Cursor hooks in your projects
- Debug hook execution using Cursor's built-in logging tools
- Enable intelligent autocomplete with JSON schemas
- Build powerful TypeScript hooks using Bun
- Implement type-safe hook logic with official type definitions
- Enforce project tooling standards (e.g., bun vs npm)
- Automate code formatting and linting on AI edits
- Create robust logging and debugging systems for your hooks

## Prerequisites

- Basic familiarity with TypeScript/JavaScript
- Cursor IDE installed
- Bun runtime (installed during the course)
- Understanding of command-line tools

## Key Technologies

- **Cursor IDE**: AI-powered code editor with hooks support
- **Bun**: Fast JavaScript runtime and toolkit
- **TypeScript**: Type-safe language for reliable automation
- **cursor-hooks**: Official type definitions package
- **JSON Schema**: Validation and autocomplete for configuration

## Learning Approach

Each lesson builds on the previous one, progressively enhancing your hook system from basic shell scripts to a sophisticated, type-safe automation framework. You'll write real code, see immediate results in your editor, and build a toolkit of reusable patterns for automating your AI-assisted development workflow.

By the end of this course, you'll have the skills to create custom hooks that make Cursor work exactly the way you want, enforcing standards, automating tedious tasks, and integrating seamlessly with your existing development tools.


Advanced Cursor Hooks

Learn to build type-safe Cursor hooks with TypeScript & Bun. Automate AI-assisted coding, enforce standards, and streamline your development workflow.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **26th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

This week was absolutely packed with major releases across the AI development landscape. Claude Sonnet 4.5 dropped with impressive benchmarks, claiming the crown for best coding model available. OpenAI released Sora 2, their next-generation text-to-video model that powers a new TikTok-style social app for AI-generated videos with synchronized audio. The iOS app has already become one of the most downloaded on the App Store. Beyond these headline releases, Cursor shipped hooks for agent lifecycle control, OpenAI launched their commerce protocol with Stripe, and we saw significant updates from DeepSeek, Cerebras, and Google. The pace of innovation continues to accelerate, and the tooling is getting more sophisticated by the day.

On a personal note, I've been running Sonnet 4.5 through the ringer with advanced scenarios and exploring SDK customizations to gain ultimate control of agentic workflows through hooks. My major focus has been developing Claude Code agents that leverage the new Chrome DevTools MCP. Bespoke agents that inspect and analyze your projects through Chrome, automatically suggesting fixes for performance and SEO, then testing the changes. It's all really pretty incredible and I'm excited to teach it in my workshop tomorrow.

🚨 **LAST CHANCE to grab tickets for tomorrow's workshop!** 🚨 [Register NOW](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

**Claude Code Essentials Course Updates** - [View Course](https://egghead.io/courses/claude-code-essentials~jc0n6)

Three new lessons on PreToolUse hooks for controlling Claude Code's tool execution:

- **Block Tool Commands Before Execution** - Intercept Bash, Write, or Edit commands before they execute using exit code 2 to block unwanted operations and enforce workflow conventions
- **Guide Claude with Rich PreToolUse Feedback** - Return structured JSON from PreToolUse hooks to deny commands with clear reasons and suggestions, creating a self-correcting feedback loop where Claude learns your conventions in real-time
- **Enforce Global Rules with User-Level Hooks** - Move PreToolUse hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json to enforce conventions like "always pnpm, never npm" across every project automatically from one central location

> *These lessons show how to build guardrails around Claude Code's tool usage—from simple command blocking to sophisticated self-correcting systems. PreToolUse hooks let you enforce conventions without constant manual intervention, whether you're preventing destructive operations or teaching Claude your team's preferred tools.*

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Claude Sonnet 4.5: A New Standard for AI Coding

**Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.5 on September 29, 2025, claiming it's the best coding model available. The benchmarks support this—it achieved 77.2% on SWE-bench Verified in standard runs (82.0% with test-time compute), outperforming GPT-5 Codex (74.5%) and Gemini 2.5 Pro (67.2%).**

Performance highlights:
- **SWE-bench Verified Leadership**: 77.2% standard runs, 82.0% with parallel test-time compute
- **30-Hour Autonomous Coding**: Built Slack-like chat app with ~11,000 lines of code unassisted
- **OSWorld Benchmark**: 61.4% (up from Sonnet 4's 42.2% four months prior)
- **Computer Use Excellence**: More than 3x as skilled at browser navigation compared to October 2024
- **Reasoning & Math Gains**: Substantial improvements across reasoning, math, and domain-specific tasks
- **Pricing**: $3/$15 per million tokens (same as Sonnet 4)

New Claude Code features:
- **Checkpointing**: Auto-saves state before each change, rewind with Esc twice or `/rewind` command
- **VS Code Extension (Beta)**: Dedicated sidebar with inline diffs, real-time change viewing, automatic diagnostic sharing
- **Subagent Support**: Hooks and long-running autonomous task capabilities
- **Imagine with Claude**: 5-day research preview generating software on-the-fly (Max users only)

Industry validation from Cursor CEO Michael Truell: "state-of-the-art coding performance," and Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang: "new generation of coding models." Anthropic also notes it's "the most aligned frontier model we've ever released" with reduced sycophancy, deception, and power-seeking behaviors.

([Anthropic Official](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-4-5), [Anthropic Claude Code Features](https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-more-autonomously), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/29/anthropic-launches-claude-sonnet-4-5-its-best-ai-model-for-coding/), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/anthropics-new-claude-can-code-for-30-hours-think-of-it-as-your-ai-coworker), [AWS Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-claude-sonnet-4-5-in-amazon-bedrock-anthropics-most-intelligent-model-best-for-coding-and-complex-agents/))

> *I've noticed a mixed reaction from the community. Some saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, others claiming it's no better than Sonnet 4.0. But expert opinions from people building professional agentic tooling, like the teams at Cognition Labs (they build Devin and Windsurf), have been extremely impressed. Their opinions matter much more to me than random comments on social media. Personally, I've had a lot of luck with it. It's completed tasks with minimal prompts and followed instructions really well. Overall, I'm thrilled and looking forward to pushing it even further.*

### Sora 2 Launches with Synchronized Audio and Social Features

**OpenAI released Sora 2 on September 30, 2025, their next-generation text-to-video model that powers a new TikTok-style social app. Sora 2 generates short AI videos with synchronized audio (dialogue and sound effects) from text prompts, packaged in a vertical "For You" feed with likes, comments, and remixing capabilities. The iOS app became one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store within days of launch.**

What is Sora 2:
- **Text-to-Video Model**: Generate short videos with both visuals and synchronized audio from text prompts
- **Social Video App**: TikTok-style vertical feed with swipes, likes, comments, and remix features
- **Digital Cameos**: Users can register their likeness (voice + facial scan) to be inserted into AI-generated scenes with permission and notifications
- **Invite-Only Launch**: Currently iOS-only, available in US and Canada

Key improvements over Sora 1:
- **Synchronized Audio**: Integrated audio and lip-syncing that matches visuals, unlike earlier silent versions
- **Better Physical Realism**: More convincing motion, object interactions, and physical dynamics
- **Enhanced Controllability**: Greater precision and control over generated content
- **Stricter Guardrails**: Robust filters, identity consent mechanisms, restrictions on public figures without permission

([OpenAI Official Blog](https://openai.com/index/sora-2/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/openai-is-launching-the-sora-app-its-own-tiktok-competitor-alongside-the-sora-2-model/), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/openai-debuts-sora-2-ai-video-generator-app-with-sound-and-self-insertion), [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/openai-sora-deepfake-yourself/), [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2025/9/30/openai-sora-social-video-app-deepfakes))

> *I've generated about 100 videos, and I feel like 1 out of 10 are really impressive. But there seems to be a lot of limitations, especially around the length of the prompt and the ability to customize. And it unfortunately hasn't been able to create a video of me dunking a basketball, which I could send to my wife and brag about.*

### Claude Now Available in Slack

**Anthropic announced on October 1, 2025, that Claude is now available directly in Slack through two integration methods, bringing AI assistance to where teams already collaborate.**

Integration features:
- **Slack App Marketplace**: Available for paid Slack plans with DM chat, @mentions in threads, AI assistant panel
- **MCP Integration**: Claude Team and Enterprise plans can connect via Model Context Protocol
- **Full Capabilities**: Web search, document analysis, connected tools access
- **Deep Workspace Context**: Search channels, DMs, and files for meeting prep, project updates, documentation
- **Permission-Aware**: Respects existing Slack access controls

([Anthropic Official](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-and-slack), [Slack Blog](https://slack.com/blog/news/ai-innovations-in-slack))

> *This just barely released, so I haven't had a chance to check it out. I'll save judgment. I'm also not really someone who lives in Slack. I tolerate it and only check when necessary. For teams that do live in Slack though, having Claude available where they already work seems convenient.*

### Claude Launches "Built with Sonnet 4.5" Challenge

**Anthropic is running a week-long challenge from October 1-7, 2025, inviting developers to showcase projects built with Claude Sonnet 4.5, with four winners receiving one year of Claude Max 20x and $1k in API credits.**

Contest categories:
- **"Keep Coding" Award**: Most technically impressive implementation
- **"Keep Researching" Award**: Most compelling exploration of a topic
- **"Keep Learning" Award**: Best educational application
- **"Keep Creating" Award**: Most artistic use-case

Entry requirements: Quote post the announcement tweet by October 7 with project details, screenshots/demos, and explanation of how it was built with Sonnet 4.5. Winners announced by October 10.

([Contest Official Rules](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12450131-built-with-claude-contest-official-rules))

> *Put on your thinking caps (or ask AI to come up with ideas for you), and go win some money! I bet the exposure would be pretty amazing and might even land you a job somewhere...*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Cursor 1.7 Ships with Agent Lifecycle Hooks

**Cursor released version 1.7 on September 29, 2025, introducing Hooks—a beta system for observing, controlling, and extending the agent loop using custom scripts.**

New features:
- **Hooks (Beta)**: Script every part of agent lifecycle for auditing, command blocking, secret redaction
- **Agent Autocomplete**: Suggestions appear while typing prompts, Tab to accept
- **Shareable Deeplinks**: Share prompts with others via simple links
- **Team-wide Rules**: Shared rules across all projects, including Bugbot for code reviews
- **Menubar Support**: Check agent status directly from menubar
- **Browser Control (Early Preview)**: Agent can take screenshots, improve UI, debug client issues with Sonnet 4.5

([Cursor Official Changelog](https://cursor.com/changelog/1-7), [Cursor Deeplinks Docs](https://cursor.com/docs/integrations/deeplinks), [InfoQ](https://www.infoq.com/news/2025/10/cursor-hooks/), [Cursor Community Forum](https://forum.cursor.com/t/sonnet-4-5-new-model-is-available-in-cursor/135363))

> *I think my favorite new feature is the Agent Autocomplete feature in the agent text box. There's just something about hitting tab and selecting a suggested text that just feels so good. I'm going to have to dive into the new Cursor hooks features and compare them to Claude Code hooks. It's actually making me want to spin up new Cursor workshops to dive into these more advanced workflows.*

### OpenAI and Stripe Launch Agentic Commerce Protocol

**OpenAI and Stripe co-developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) on September 29, 2025, a new open standard for AI-driven commerce that enables programmatic transactions between buyers, AI agents, and businesses.**

Protocol features:
- **Open Standard**: Co-developed with Stripe for agent-initiated commerce flows
- **Shared Payment Tokens (SPT)**: Initiate payments without exposing buyer credentials
- **Instant Checkout in ChatGPT**: Available now for US Etsy sellers (US ChatGPT users)
- **Shopify Integration**: Coming soon for 1M+ merchants including Glossier, Vuori, Spanx, SKIMS
- **Broad Support**: Early partners include Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic, Perplexity, Vercel, Lovable, Replit
- **Merchant Control**: Full control over products, branding, and fulfillment

([Stripe Official Newsroom](https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-openai-instant-checkout), [Stripe Blog](https://stripe.com/blog/developing-an-open-standard-for-agentic-commerce), [OpenAI Official Blog](https://openai.com/index/buy-it-in-chatgpt/), [Shopify News](https://www.shopify.com/news/shopify-open-ai-commerce), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/29/openai-takes-on-google-amazon-with-new-agentic-shopping-system/))

> *This definitely smells like ChatGPT is going to start producing ads. They've mentioned that the agents will start sending you things unprompted, and they're setting up ways for learning from users and finding what to sell them. You can imagine how much they could challenge Instagram. When you're doom-scrolling through Instagram, you always see things you want to buy. How much more targeted will ChatGPT be able to sell you things based on all the questions you've asked about mental health and fashion? I bet they'll make a bajillion dollars by keeping ChatGPT free and selling people's stuff through conversations.*

### GLM-4.6 Released with 200K Context Window

**Z.ai released GLM-4.6 on September 30, 2025, an open-source 355B-parameter coding model with a 200K token context window and improved agentic capabilities.**

Model improvements:
- **Near Sonnet 4 Parity**: 48.6% win rate vs Claude Sonnet 4 on CC-Bench real-world coding tests
- **Token Efficiency**: Completes tasks with ~15% fewer tokens than GLM-4.5
- **Expanded Context**: 200K token input window (up from 128K)
- **Cost Advantage**: $0.60/$2 per 1M tokens (5x cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.5)
- **Open Weights**: MIT license for local deployment via vLLM and SGLang
- **Agent Integration**: Works with Claude Code, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code

([Z.ai Official Blog](https://z.ai/blog/glm-4.6), [Z.ai Documentation](https://docs.z.ai/guides/llm/glm-4.6), [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3327512/chinas-zai-rolls-out-glm-46-latest-coding-challenge-anthropic-openai), [MarkTechPost](https://www.marktechpost.com/2025/09/30/zhipu-ai-releases-glm-4-6-achieving-enhancements-in-real-world-coding-long-context-processing-reasoning-searching-and-agentic-ai/))

> *This model is so stinking cheap that it's definitely something I've been experimenting with as well. It's kind of a fallback model in case I start running into limits with Claude Code. It integrates into Claude Code perfectly as far as calling MCPs and subagents and everything. I don't have a final verdict on it, but it's been working pretty well. I did have some scenarios where I think it could have thought through some of the issues a bit deeper, where I'm sure Sonnet 4.5 would have solved it. But other than that, for the price and performance, it's been pretty remarkable.*

### DeepSeek V3.2-Exp Cuts API Costs in Half

**DeepSeek released V3.2-Exp on September 29, 2025, an experimental model introducing DeepSeek Sparse Attention (DSA)—a new architecture designed to optimize training and inference efficiency for long-context operations.**

Technical improvements:
- **Sparse Attention Architecture**: DSA mechanism focuses compute where it matters most
- **50%+ Cost Reduction**: API pricing down to $0.028 per million input tokens (cache hits)
- **V3.1-Terminus Foundation**: Built on proven architecture with efficiency improvements
- **Open Weights**: Released on Hugging Face under MIT License
- **Multi-Platform**: Available on App, Web, and API

([DeepSeek Official Docs](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/news/news250929), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/29/deepseek-releases-sparse-attention-model-that-cuts-api-costs-in-half/), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepseeks-new-v3-2-exp-model-cuts-api-pricing-in-half-to-less-than-3-cents))

> *DeepSeek keeps on improving. I've just been so busy with everything else I've mentioned that I haven't even had a spare second to test it out. But it's definitely high on my list, and I love seeing the open source models continue to grow.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Cerebras Raises $1.1B at $8.1B Valuation
- **Series G Funding**: $1.1B led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Atreides Management
- **Post-money Valuation**: $8.1 billion
- **Performance Claims**: Up to 21x faster inference than Nvidia DGX B200 on specific workloads
- **IPO Status**: Delayed due to CFIUS regulatory review

([Cerebras Press Release](https://www.cerebras.ai/press-release/series-g), [Business Wire](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250930667206/en/Cerebras-Systems-Raises-$1.1-Billion-Series-G-at-$8.1-Billion-Valuation), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/30/a-year-after-filing-to-ipo-still-private-cerebras-systems-raises-1-1b/))

### Google Adds Visual Search to AI Mode
- **Visual Search Fan-out**: Runs multiple related queries in background for better understanding
- **Multimodal Integration**: Combines Google Search, Lens, and Image search with Gemini 2.5
- **Shopping Focus**: Initial emphasis on product discovery with 50B+ product listings
- **US English Rollout**: Available to US English users

([Google Blog](https://blog.google/products/search/search-ai-updates-september-2025/), [Google Shopping Blog](https://blog.google/products/shopping/google-shopping-ai-mode-virtual-try-on-update/), [9to5Google](https://9to5google.com/2025/09/30/google-ai-mode-visual/))

### Anthropic Publishes Context Engineering Guide
- **New Framework**: "The art and science of curating what goes into the limited context window"
- **Agent Definition**: "LLMs autonomously using tools in a loop"
- **Strategic Focus**: Managing context effectively in agentic workflows

([Anthropic Engineering Blog](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/effective-context-engineering-for-ai-agents))

### Google AI Studio Offers Free Voice Agent Development
- **Live API Access**: Build voice AI agents with Gemini Live for free
- **Generous Limits**: 60 model requests per minute, 1,000 requests per day
- **Voice Features**: Voice activity detection, tool use, function calling, session management
- **Consumer Access**: Gemini Live with camera and screen sharing free on Android and iOS

([Google AI Developers: Live API](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/live), [Google AI Developers: Pricing](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing))

### LlamaIndex Releases Semantic Filesystem Tools
- **Claude Code Integration**: Semantic search over any documents via CLI
- **Persistent Workspaces**: Manually or agentically create indexes over file subsets
- **Dynamic Indexing**: Agents can create and use indexes instead of rebuilding each time
- **Tool Chaining**: Works with grep, cat, and other CLI tools

([LlamaIndex GitHub: semtools](https://github.com/run-llama/semtools))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### 🚨 LAST CHANCE 🚨 Claude Code Power User Workshop - TOMORROW, October 3rd

Following four sold-out sessions, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for **TOMORROW, October 3rd at 9am-2pm PDT**.

🚨 **This is your absolute last chance to grab tickets before the workshop!** 🚨

What we'll cover:
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- MCP workflows and server development
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

Hope to see you there!

**Register NOW: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)**

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #26: Claude Sonnet 4.5, Sora 2, and New Cursor Hooks

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the new top coding model & OpenAI released Sora 2. Plus, updates on Cursor, Stripe, and more.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **25th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

As always, it's been another packed news week in the AI dev space. The new Meta model is intriguing due to the method in which they're training it. The Google Chrome MCP is the most powerful MCP release to date. OpenAI keeps expanding infrastructure, investing ludicrous amounts of money. Research shows that 90% of developers are using some form of AI to write code, which is a pretty dang high number.

Personally, I've been experimenting with the Chrome DevTools MCP and I'm looking forward to adding that to my Claude Code workshop and replacing a lot of my Playwright MCP usage. I've also been diving deeper into the Claude Code SDK, which had a minor release but added a bunch of types that have been missing in the past, making it much easier to work with. If you're interested in my next workshop, you can sign up at the link below.

Sign up for the next workshop here: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

**Claude Code Essentials Course Updates** - [View Course](https://egghead.io/courses/claude-code-essentials~jc0n6)

New lessons on Claude Code hooks:
- **Type-Safe Hooks with Bun** - Parse JSON payloads with TypeScript types
- **Prompt Rewriting** - Create custom shortcuts like `:plan` to transform prompts
- **Live Data Injection** - Build `load()` functions that fetch API data on demand
- **Template-Driven Solutions** - Generate N variations with `v(5)` commands
- **Hook Guardrails** - Block dangerous prompts with exit codes and stderr feedback

> *These lessons show how to extend Claude Code with custom automation, from simple prompt shortcuts to sophisticated guardrails. Perfect for teams looking to standardize their AI workflows.*

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Meta Unveils Code World Model for Advanced Code Generation

**Meta FAIR released Code World Model (CWM) on September 24, 2025, a 32-billion-parameter research model that introduces "world modeling" to understand how code execution affects program state, not just syntax.**

Key capabilities:
- **World Modeling Innovation**: Trained on Python execution traces and Docker environment interactions, recording how each line affects local variable states
- **Impressive Benchmarks**: 68.6% on LiveCodeBench v5, 76% on AIME 2024, 65.8% on SWE-bench Verified, 96.6% on Math-500
- **Three Model Variants**: Pretrained (`cwm-pretrain`), supervised fine-tuned (`cwm-sft`), and instruction-tuned (`cwm`) checkpoints
- **Neural Debugger**: Functions like a neural `pdb` that can be set to any initial frame state for reasoning queries
- **Hardware Requirements**: Needs 160GB combined GPU VRAM for inference
- **Research License**: Released under FAIR Non-Commercial Research License for academic use

([Meta AI Research](https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/cwm-an-open-weights-llm-for-research-on-code-generation-with-world-models/), [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/facebookresearch/cwm), [MarkTechPost](https://www.marktechpost.com/2025/09/25/meta-fair-released-code-world-model-cwm-a-32-billion-parameter-open-weights-llm-to-advance-research-on-code-generation-with-world-models/))

> *I actually really love this idea because I often feed build output, logs, and traces back into the AI to help it understand the code it wrote. Taking that approach when training the model seems like it might even save me that step and make it more intelligent about what the final output would be. The fact that this is only a version one and it's already so performant while being as small as it is is extremely impressive. It's definitely not something to rely on right away—it doesn't match the latest state-of-the-art models—but we'll see if it catches up.*

### Claude Now Available in Microsoft 365 Copilot

**Microsoft announced on September 24, 2025, that Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 are now available in Microsoft 365 Copilot, expanding AI model choices for enterprise users beyond OpenAI.**

Integration details:
- **Model Options**: Claude Opus 4.1 powers Researcher agent for complex reasoning, Claude Sonnet 4 available in Copilot Studio
- **Enterprise Focus**: Building agents with deep reasoning and workflow automation capabilities
- **Rollout Strategy**: Available through Microsoft's Frontier Program to opted-in Copilot-licensed customers
- **Data Considerations**: Claude models hosted outside Microsoft environments, subject to Anthropic's Terms of Service
- **Strategic Shift**: Microsoft embracing multi-model orchestration rather than exclusive OpenAI reliance

([Microsoft 365 Blog](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2025/09/24/expanding-model-choice-in-microsoft-365-copilot/), [Anthropic Official](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-now-available-in-microsoft-365-copilot), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/24/microsoft-adds-anthropics-ai-to-copilot/), [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/24/microsoft-adds-anthropic-model-to-microsoft-365-copilot.html))

> *I'm not going to pretend to understand the inner workings of the business contracts between all these powerhouses, but last I checked, Microsoft and OpenAI were pretty tight bed partners. So this announcement of Anthropic stepping in as an option really catches me off guard. Honestly, I prefer Anthropic's models for doing things like writing documents and authoring code, and it's probably the best play in the long run for Microsoft to be flexible enough to support all the different providers. But at a certain point you'd think Microsoft would just start providing its own models?*

### OpenAI Expands Stargate With Five New AI Data Centers

**OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced five new Stargate AI data center sites on September 23, 2025, accelerating their $500 billion infrastructure commitment ahead of schedule.**

Expansion details:
- **New Locations**: Shackelford County TX, Doña Ana County NM, Lordstown OH, Milam County TX, plus one Midwest site
- **Investment Scale**: $400+ billion over three years, approaching full $500 billion commitment
- **Capacity Growth**: Nearly 7 gigawatts planned capacity, progressing toward 10-gigawatt goal
- **Partnership Structure**: Oracle leading three sites, SoftBank managing two through SB Energy
- **Compute Offerings**: New compute-intensive features for ChatGPT Pro subscribers with additional fees
- **Timeline**: Ahead of schedule to meet full commitment by end of 2025

([OpenAI Official](https://openai.com/index/five-new-stargate-sites/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/23/openai-is-building-five-new-stargate-data-centers-with-oracle-and-softbank/), [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-23/openai-oracle-expand-stargate-with-5-new-data-center-sites-in-us), [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/openai-first-data-center-in-500-billion-stargate-project-up-in-texas.html))

> *Scale, scale, scale. It feels like all the major providers are having infrastructure measuring contests at this point. I know they all think that more equals smarter. Given the global impact of these investments in infrastructure and energy costs, the entire world better hope that's true.*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Cursor Ships Custom Commands and GPT-5-Codex Support

**Cursor version 1.6 introduced custom slash commands on September 12, 2025, allowing developers to create reusable prompts in `.cursor/commands/[command].md` files, plus integration with OpenAI's GPT-5-Codex model.**

New features:
- **Custom Commands**: Define reusable prompts in `.cursor/commands/` directory, accessible via `/` in Agent input
- **GPT-5-Codex Integration**: Access to OpenAI's latest coding-optimized model (announced September 23)
- **Command Examples**: Light code reviews, test runners with auto-fix, PR comment resolution
- **Website Evolution**: Positioning as "the new way to build software" beyond just an IDE
- **Developer Experience**: Commands work with CLI integration for automated workflows

([Cursor Changelog](https://cursor.com/changelog/1-6), [Cursor Documentation](https://docs.cursor.com/en/agent/chat/commands), [Cursor Blog](https://cursor.com/en-US/blog/gpt-5))

> *When I first used Cursor, I used to create a slash workflows directory and then @include the workflow file in the agent to essentially trigger that workflow. If you've been to any of my Cursor workshops, you saw how I set that up. Commands are essentially the evolution of having a workflow prompt you can keep in your project, share with the team, and trigger to take action. While I do love the idea of commands and the fact that they're coming to Cursor—they're available in many tools now, such as Claude Code and others—my favorite part is that everyone is standardizing on using the slash as a way to reference prompts that should take action. It's a great developer experience and I'm glad that everyone is on board with that now.*

### Chrome DevTools MCP Brings Browser Automation to AI Agents

**Google launched Chrome DevTools MCP on September 23, 2025, enabling AI coding agents to control Chrome's debugging and automation capabilities through the Model Context Protocol.**

MCP capabilities:
- **Automation Control**: Programmatic handling of clicks, form fills, dialogs, and navigation
- **Performance Analysis**: Record traces and extract optimization insights from web apps
- **Advanced Debugging**: Analyze network requests, console messages, screenshots, script evaluation
- **Browser Emulation**: Test with CPU slowdown, network throttling, various screen sizes
- **Modern App Support**: Specifically designed for complex single-page applications
- **AI Integration**: Works with Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible tools

([Chrome Developers Blog](https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-devtools-mcp), [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/chrome-devtools-mcp))

> *Chrome exposing an MCP server is essentially AI web debugging. I know this is only a public preview, but as a sign of things to come, allowing any of the AI agents to check in with Chrome to see what's happening in browser windows is going to allow agents to do a lot more work and check their work—everything from debugging console logs and catching errors to inspecting layouts or traces to find performance issues. This is a huge first step towards allowing agents to better automate web development and I'm all here for it.*

### VS Code Introduces Auto Mode for Intelligent Model Selection

**Microsoft released Auto Mode for VS Code on September 24, 2025, automatically selecting the optimal AI model based on task complexity and context.**

Auto Mode features:
- **Smart Model Routing**: Automatically chooses between different AI models based on query complexity
- **Context-Aware Selection**: Considers file type, project context, and task requirements
- **Cost Optimization**: Uses lighter models for simple tasks, powerful models for complex ones
- **Seamless Experience**: No manual model switching required during development
- **Performance Balance**: Optimizes for both speed and accuracy based on needs

([VS Code Blog](https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/09/15/autoModelSelection), [Microsoft Developer Blog](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/vscode/))

> *I know that VS Code started out a little bit behind, but they sure are catching up. If you haven't had a chance to try VS Code in lieu of the other AI editors out there, I strongly recommend installing it and checking out their plans to see if it's a good fit for you. They're doing an amazing job at responding to community feedback, and you can see the passion they're putting into all the new updates.*

### Vercel Releases Open Source Coding Agent Template

**Vercel launched an open-source coding agent template on September 23, 2025, powered by AI SDK, AI Gateway, and Sandbox, providing infrastructure for building custom coding agents.**

Template features:
- **Multi-Agent Support**: Works with Claude, Codex, Cursor, and opencode models
- **Isolated Sandboxes**: Each task runs in its own secure environment
- **OpenAI-Compatible Gateway**: Unified API for different model providers
- **Parallel Execution**: Run multiple agent tasks simultaneously
- **GitHub Integration**: Ready for CI/CD workflows and automation
- **Cloud Execution**: Keep local machines safe from unwanted changes

([GitHub Repository](https://github.com/vercel-labs/coding-agent-template), [Vercel Blog](https://vercel.com/blog/coding-agent-template))

> *It's fascinating to watch the wave of containerized agents that you can run from the browser or trigger via webhooks. OpenAI's Codex has done it for a long time, and there are many others out there. Typically people compare these to pull request reviews that just look through code changes for bugs or syntax issues. But these containerized approaches are much more powerful because they allow for code execution and inspection that just looking at the code can't achieve.*

> *Seeing Vercel execute on this is particularly interesting because they own the stack that their apps and services are hosted on. They can containerize on a platform where they're already building the applications and respond to errors that happen in the container. This really takes it to that next step of AI agents having fixes for you when things go wrong. Because Vercel has the logs, build errors, history, deployments, and everything in place where they can reference so many aspects of your project, they have an incredible amount of context to leverage. I'm going to keep a close eye on this one as I think Vercel is in an awesome spot to really execute on coding agents as part of their infrastructure—not just as an add-on that does a simple code review on GitHub.*

---

## 🤖 AI Ecosystem Updates

### Google's 2025 DORA Report: 90% of Developers Now Using AI

**Google released the 2025 DORA Report in August 2025, revealing that 90% of software professionals use AI tools, with complex impacts on productivity and delivery stability.**

Key findings:
- **Adoption Rate**: 90% of developers use AI (up from 76% in 2024), with 65% reporting "heavy" usage
- **Productivity Impact**: 80%+ report increased productivity, 59% report improved code quality
- **Trust Gap**: 30% have little to no trust in AI-generated code despite widespread adoption
- **Delivery Metrics**: AI improves throughput (reversing 2024's negative trend) but increases instability
- **Time Investment**: Developers spend median of 2 hours daily working with AI tools
- **Success Factors**: Platform engineering and strong foundations critical for AI value realization

([Google Cloud Blog](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-the-2025-dora-report), [Google Developers Blog](https://blog.google/technology/developers/dora-report-2025/), [The Register](https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/24/googlesponsored_dora_report_reframes_ai))

> *The 30% trust gap is the most interesting finding here. We're all using AI, but a third of us don't trust what it produces. I'm happy to see devs are still using their brains instead of blindly trusting the output.*

### DeepSeek Releases V3.1-Terminus With Agent Improvements

**DeepSeek launched V3.1-Terminus on September 22, 2025, addressing user feedback with improved language consistency and stronger agent performance.**

Model improvements:
- **Language Consistency**: Fixed Chinese/English mix-ups and random character generation
- **Code Agent Upgrades**: Enhanced performance for coding tasks and tool use
- **Search Agent Enhancement**: Better web search integration and result synthesis
- **Stability Improvements**: More reliable outputs for production use
- **API Compatibility**: Maintains compatibility with existing DeepSeek integrations

([DeepSeek Official](https://www.deepseek.ai), [DeepSeek API](https://api.deepseek.ai))

> *Their code agent improvements are noticeable, though still not quite at Claude or GPT-5 level for complex tasks... Definitely worth keeping an eye on though.*

### OpenAI Study Reveals ChatGPT Usage Patterns

**OpenAI released a large-scale study on September 22, 2025, analyzing how people use ChatGPT across personal and professional contexts.**

Study highlights:
- **Broad Adoption**: Consumer adoption expanded beyond early tech adopters
- **Value Creation**: Significant economic value through both personal and professional use
- **Usage Patterns**: Diverse applications from coding to creative writing to research
- **Professional Integration**: Increasing use in workplace workflows and decision-making
- **Learning Applications**: Heavy use for education and skill development

([OpenAI Research](https://openai.com/index/how-people-are-using-chatgpt/))

> *AI tools are becoming essential in every field of work. The shift from "early adopter toy" to "professional necessity" happened faster than I would have predicted. I still haven't quite got my parents to fully embrace AI, but I'm working on it!*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Launches Educational AI Tools
- **Knowledge Graph**: AI-powered educational content organization
- **Claude Connector**: Direct integration with Claude for educational workflows
- **Evaluators**: Tools for assessing AI-generated educational content
- **Trust Foundation**: Building reliable AI tools teachers can depend on

([CZI Blog](https://czi.co/3IxNQxy))

### Vercel Ship AI 2025 Conference - October 23
- **Expert Speakers**: Teams from Anthropic, Slack, and Google DeepMind
- **Topics**: AI SDK, AI Gateway, and AI Cloud infrastructure
- **Format**: Virtual and in-person options available
- **Early Bird**: Tickets available with discount pricing

([Vercel Ship AI](https://vercel.com/ship/ai))

### Sam Altman Announces Compute-Intensive Pro Features
- **New Offerings**: Compute-heavy features initially Pro-subscriber only
- **Additional Fees**: Some features will cost extra beyond Pro subscription
- **Long-term Vision**: Drive intelligence costs down over time
- **Experimentation**: Testing limits of current model capabilities

([Benzinga](https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/25/09/47783069/openais-sam-altman-admits-new-ai-tools-too-costly-for-free-users), [TechRadar](https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/chatgpt))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight (Early Bird Pricing Ends Tonight 🚨)

### Claude Code Power User Workshop - Friday, October 3rd

Following four sold-out sessions, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for **next Friday, October 3rd at 9am-2pm PDT**.

What we'll cover:
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- MCP workflows (now with the Google Chrome MCP!)
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

Hope to see you there!

**Register here: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)**

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #25: Meta's New Model, Claude in Microsoft 365, and Chrome MCP

Get the latest in AI development. This week: Meta's new Code World Model, Claude in M365, Chrome's AI debugger, and other essential news for AI devs.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **24th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

This week has been jam packed with devtool news. Gemini slid right into Chrome, Notion went all in on AI, OpenAI shipped a fresh new coding model, and Meta bets on glasses with wristbands. Everything is speeding up without any hint of slowing down, and the best part is that these upgrades are getting real love and proving that AI is becoming more essential to our daily tools. I spent a huge chunk of the week building out my Claude Code Essentials course (it will essentially be the prereq for the Claude Code Power User workshop).

Grab a spot for the Oct 3rd workshop here: **https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code**

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

I published my Claude Code Essentials course this morning. It kicks off with nine lessons packed with the early tips and concepts that knock down that first bit of friction when you pick up a fresh tool. I am already queuing up more lessons, so expect this course to keep growing. Even if you have lived in Claude Code for a while I tucked in little gems in every lesson to keep things interesting. These first nine lessons focus on developer ergonomics and the next set will move deeper into habits, best practices, and sharpening the skills that make you a confident Claude Code developer. Putting this together has been a blast and I am grateful I finally carved out the time to share what I have been learning with you all.

_🐬 Dive in to the "Claude Code Essentials" course here:_

**[Claude Code Essentials on egghead.io](https://egghead.io/courses/claude-code-essentials~jc0n6)**

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Google Chrome Receives Major AI Upgrade

**Google announced significant AI enhancements to Chrome on September 18, 2025, integrating Gemini AI directly into the browser for Mac and Windows users in the U.S.**

Key features:
- **Gemini in Chrome**: Native AI integration for intelligent browsing assistance
- **AI Mode in Address Bar**: Search with context-aware AI for complex queries
- **Cross-tab Functionality**: AI can work across multiple tabs simultaneously
- **Agentic Browsing**: Autonomous task handling for appointments and shopping (coming soon)
- **Enhanced Google Apps Integration**: Deeper connection with Calendar, YouTube, and Maps

> *I have been on the beta for a while and I absolutely love hitting Control G to pull up Gemini for little tasks. It still feels like a version one because it is missing the keyboard shortcuts and the ways to work on selected text or answer a thread, but it is still an awesome version one. I cannot imagine the scale of shipping AI to everyone using Chrome. Those numbers are unimaginable to me.*

([Google Chrome Blog](https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-ai-features-for-chrome/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/18/google-brings-gemini-in-chrome-to-us-users-unveils-agentic-browsing-capabilities-and-more/))

### Notion 3.0 Launches with AI Agents

**Notion officially launched version 3.0 on September 18, 2025, introducing autonomous AI Agents capable of performing up to 20 minutes of independent work across hundreds of pages.**

Agent capabilities:
- **Personal Agents**: Handle complex projects like building launch plans autonomously
- **Custom Agents**: Run autonomously on schedules (coming soon)
- **Tool Integration**: Works with Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub
- **Latest AI Models**: Includes Claude Sonnet 4 and GPT-5
- **Revenue Milestone**: Notion crossed $500 million in annual revenue

> *I'm not a Notion user but this felt like pretty big news. It's fascinating to see the idea of an agent show up across so many products. I don't think many people have thought about what the user interfaces for agents will look like in a couple years or what the knowledge bases will become. I'm in the mindset that the agent should be the first layer and then it reaches into the application to take you where you need to go. Google's hardware approach with Gemini as a single button on the phone that reacts to the screen feels like the winning formula. I'm curious what AI and agents mean for the consolidation of user interfaces and which products will struggle once agents understand context and sweep away the complexity.*

([Notion Official Blog](https://www.notion.com/blog/introducing-notion-3-0), [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/18/notion-launches-ai-agent-as-it-crosses-500-million-in-annual-revenue.html))

### OpenAI Achieves Perfect Score at ICPC World Finals

**OpenAI's general-purpose reasoning model achieved a historic perfect 12/12 score at the 2025 International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals, outperforming all 139 human teams.**

Performance highlights:
- **ICPC World Finals**: First AI to achieve perfect score, would have placed 1st
- **GPT-5 System**: Solved first 11 problems with experimental model for final problem
- **GPT-5-Codex Release**: Optimized for agentic software engineering
- **7+ Hour Autonomy**: Can work independently on complex tasks
- **Multi-platform**: Available in CLI, IDE extensions, web, mobile, and GitHub

> *I was lucky enough to join the beta for the Codex model and it has handled some pretty complex tasks I tossed at it. I feel much more comfortable handing it multi step features or fixes that take time to think through, stepping away from the computer, and coming back to real progress. Plenty of folks are already using the Codex CLI as their main development tool. It will be interesting to see how Anthropic responds because I keep hearing whispers about new models dropping next week. The competition in the coding space is a huge win for all of us because it pushes every big provider to ship better models more often and at better prices.*

([OpenAI Codex Announcement](https://openai.com/index/introducing-upgrades-to-codex/), [The Decoder](https://the-decoder.com/openai-outperforms-humans-and-google-at-the-worlds-top-collegiate-programming-contest/))

### Meta Unveils Ray-Ban Display Glasses with Neural Interface

**Meta announced the Ray-Ban Display glasses with Meta Neural Band at Connect 2025 on September 17, 2025, priced at $799 and available September 30.**

Revolutionary features:
- **Full-Color Display**: Private viewing of messages and navigation
- **Meta Neural Band**: EMG wristband translating finger movements to commands
- **18-Hour Battery**: Long-lasting wristband with 4 years of research backing
- **200,000 Participants**: Extensive testing program for accuracy
- **September 30 Launch**: Available for $799

> *The EMG wristband is the sleeper feature here. Being able to control interfaces through subtle muscle movements opens up entirely new interaction paradigms. The quality and reliability will be crucial because if Meta can nail the input accuracy this could genuinely change how we interact with computers. My big hesitation is wearing glasses when everyone knows the cameras are always watching. I don't know if we need a full generation to get over that idea. I'm starting to think I should accept it and maybe even embrace it for myself because the upside looks so useful.*

([Meta Official Announcement](https://about.fb.com/news/2025/09/meta-ray-ban-display-ai-glasses-emg-wristband/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/17/meta-unveils-new-smart-glasses-with-a-display-and-wristband-controller/))

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Vercel Agent Enters Public Beta with AI Code Reviews

**Vercel launched Agent in public beta for Pro and Enterprise customers in September 2025, offering AI-powered code reviews that analyze correctness, security, and performance.**

Agent features:
- **Codebase-Aware Reviews**: Examines beyond just the diff
- **Sandbox Validation**: Patches tested in Vercel Sandboxes before suggestions
- **Framework Support**: Next.js, React, Nuxt, and Svelte
- **Multi-language**: TypeScript, Python, and Go support
- **Usage-Based Pricing**: $100 Vercel Agent credit included

> *I'm always interested in agents that are tightly integrated with the tooling and stack they live in. A Vercel agent tuned for the Vercel platform and the Next.js framework should guide you from a smelly PR straight to the right tool, fire up whatever analysis is needed, and knock out the fix for you. That kind of deep integration could really stand out if you are already in the Vercel ecosystem compared to the generic code review tools floating around.*

([Vercel Community Announcement](https://community.vercel.com/t/vercel-agent-now-in-public-beta/22813), [Vercel Changelog](https://vercel.com/changelog/ai-code-reviews-by-vercel-agent-now-in-beta))

### GitHub Launches MCP Registry for AI Tool Discovery

**GitHub released the MCP Registry on September 16, 2025, as a centralized hub for discovering Model Context Protocol servers with one-click installation.**

Registry benefits:
- **One-Click Installation**: Direct VS Code integration
- **Community Metrics**: Servers sorted by GitHub stars and activity
- **Launch Partners**: Figma, Postman, HashiCorp, and Dynatrace
- **Cross-platform**: Works with Copilot, Claude, and MCP-compatible tools
- **Open Contribution**: Community-driven server submissions

> *Discovering MCPs has been a challenge and I agree this registry helps, but I'm extremely hesitant to install MCPs even when friends recommend them because there are still big security issues and the context cost can hit your tooling. So while I think the registry is a great idea I'm still going to do my own homework before installing anything that looks interesting. My concern is that people will install MCPs willy nilly and run into the traps that pop up when you do not fully understand what an MCP is doing to your project.*

([GitHub Blog](https://github.blog/ai-and-ml/github-copilot/meet-the-github-mcp-registry-the-fastest-way-to-discover-mcp-servers/), [GitHub MCP Registry](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry))

### Claude Developer Platform Unveils Tool Helpers for SDKs

**Anthropic launched tool helpers in beta for Python and TypeScript SDKs through the Claude Code SDK, simplifying tool creation and execution in Claude applications.**

SDK improvements:
- **Automatic Input Validation**: Type-safe parameter checking
- **Tool Runner**: Automated tool handling in conversations
- **Package Availability**: `claude-code-sdk` on PyPI, `@anthropic-ai/claude-code` on NPM
- **Simplified Creation**: Reduced boilerplate for tool definitions
- **Cross-language Parity**: Consistent Python and TypeScript experience

> *My Power User workshop essentially forced me to build out a custom SDK to make advanced agents easier to build (which I have no desire to maintain) so I'm thrilled whenever the official Claude Code SDK ships a new update. Consistent tool calling is a huge piece of making AIs more productive and useful when you build out automations and brings me one step closer to dropping my own SDK 😇.*

([Claude Code SDK Documentation](https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/claude-code/sdk), [Claude API Release Notes](https://docs.claude.com/en/release-notes/api))

### Cursor 1.6 Ships Custom Commands and MCP Resources

**Cursor released version 1.6 with custom slash commands stored in `.cursor/commands/[command].md` files, MCP Resources support, and 26 stability patches.**

Version 1.6 features:
- **Custom Commands**: Reusable prompts in `.cursor/commands/` directory
- **MCP Resources**: Share contextual data like files and database schemas
- **/summarize Command**: On-demand context summarization
- **Variable Interpolation**: Enhanced MCP configuration options
- **26 Stability Patches**: Significant reliability improvements

> *I love custom commands. I'm a script heavy automation person and these commands are an amazing way to pair an AI with CLI tooling and wrap it behind a simple English word or two. Commands started in Claude Code and I love seeing them show up in other IDEs because I think more of us will start using them.*

([Cursor 1.6 Changelog](https://cursor.com/en/changelog/1-6), [Cursor MCP Documentation](https://docs.cursor.com/en/context/mcp))

---

## 🤖 AI Ecosystem Updates

### Anthropic Publishes Detailed Postmortem on Recent Claude Issues

**Anthropic released a comprehensive technical report detailing three overlapping infrastructure bugs that caused intermittent degradation of Claude's response quality between August and early September 2024.**

Key findings:
- **Three Infrastructure Bugs**: Context window routing errors, token generation corruption, compiler/top-k bugs
- **Peak Impact**: 16% of Sonnet 4 traffic affected on August 31
- **Complete Resolution**: All bugs fixed with preventive measures implemented
- **Transparent Communication**: Full technical details shared publicly
- **Enhanced Monitoring**: Improved systems to catch similar issues faster

> *This level of transparency from Anthropic is refreshing. I can't imagine trying to hunt down non-deterministic, overlapping bugs spread across different infrastructures. Hopefully this puts an end to all the speculation and drama around recent quality issues.*

([Anthropic Engineering Blog](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/a-postmortem-of-three-recent-issues), [Hacker News Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45281139))

### Microsoft Announces $30 Billion UK AI Investment

**Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced a $30 billion investment in UK AI infrastructure from 2025-2028, representing Microsoft's largest financial commitment ever in the UK.**

Investment details:
- **Record Commitment**: $15.5B capital expansion, $15.1B operations
- **UK Supercomputer**: Over 23,000 NVIDIA GPUs in new facility
- **Stargate UK**: Partnership with OpenAI and NVIDIA for sovereign AI compute
- **Timeline**: 2025-2028 investment period
- **Job Creation**: Thousands of high-skilled AI positions

> *Big numbers keep getting bigger. Would sure be nice if a couple of those GPUs and 0.1 of the Bs were accidentally sent to my address...*

([Microsoft Official Blog](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/09/16/microsoft-30-billion-uk-ai-future/), [OpenAI Stargate UK](https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uk/))

### Groq Raises $750M at $6.9B Valuation for AI Chip Development

**AI chip startup Groq secured $750 million in funding at a $6.9 billion post-money valuation in September 2024, more than doubling its previous $2.8 billion valuation.**

Funding highlights:
- **Lead Investor**: Disruptive, with BlackRock, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom
- **Doubled Valuation**: From $2.8B (August) to $6.9B (September)
- **LPU Performance**: 241 tokens/sec on Llama-2 70B, 640 tokens/sec on Mixtral 8x7B
- **Enterprise Focus**: Targeting large-scale deployment needs
- **Manufacturing Scale**: Ramping production to meet demand

> *My experience with Groq has been pretty limited to experiments. Usually running into call limits and prohibitive pricing. But the speed! It's so hard to go back to other models after you see the instant responses from Groq. I'm cheering for them and glad to see they have more money in the bank.*

([Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-17/ai-chip-startup-groq-raises-750-million-at-6-9-billion-valuation), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/17/nvidia-ai-chip-challenger-groq-raises-even-more-than-expected-hits-6-9b-valuation/))

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### ElevenLabs Studio 3.0 Adds Video Support
- **Complete Audio Suite**: Voiceovers, music, sound effects in one editor
- **Video Integration**: Full video editing with AI audio tools
- **Voice Isolation**: Extract clean dialogue from noisy recordings
- **Automatic Captioning**: AI-generated subtitles and captions
- **Multiplayer Commenting**: Real-time collaboration features

([ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/studio))

### Perplexity Launches Connectors for Pro Users
- **Service Integration**: Connect email, calendar, Notion, GitHub
- **Enterprise Features**: Outlook and Linear for Enterprise Pro
- **Context Awareness**: Searches across connected services
- **Privacy Controls**: Granular permissions for each connector

([Perplexity Blog](https://www.perplexity.ai/blog/connectors))

### CodeRabbit CLI Launches as Quality Gate
- **Multi-model Support**: Reviews for Codex, Claude, Gemini output
- **Smart Analysis**: Catches issues before they reach production
- **MCP Integration**: First code review platform with full MCP support
- **CLI-First**: Designed for terminal workflows

([CodeRabbit](https://www.coderabbit.ai))

### Google Vids Gets Veo 3 Image-to-Video
- **Photo Animation**: Transform still images into 8-second videos
- **Audio Generation**: Automatic sound effects and music
- **Prompt Control**: Describe how images should animate
- **Free Access**: Available at vids.new

([Google Workspace Blog](http://vids.new/))

### Claude Unifies Developer Branding
- **Anthropic Platform → Claude Developer Platform**
- **New Domain**: docs.claude.com (legacy redirects until December 2025)
- **Console**: Available at platform.claude.com
- **Xcode 26**: Claude Sonnet 4 for Pro/Max/Enterprise users

([Anthropic Claude Platform](https://www.anthropic.com/api), [Claude in Xcode](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-in-xcode))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight (Early Bird Pricing Ends Soon)

### Claude Code Power User Workshop - Friday, October 3rd

Following four sold-out sessions, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for **this Friday, October 3rd at 9am-2pm PDT**.

What we'll cover:
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

Hope to see you there!

**Register here: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)**

---


Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #24: Gemini in Chrome, Notion Agents, and OpenAI's ICPC Win

Google Chrome and Notion unveil major AI updates, while OpenAI's new model achieves a perfect score in a coding competition.

Claude Code Essentials is the starter kit I wish existed when I first opened Claude inside VS Code. These lessons capture the shortcuts, workflows, and mental models that make the extension feel like an extension of your editor instead of a detached chat window. You’ll see how the IDE bridge provides context, how to move fast in the Claude terminal, and how to give the model precisely what it needs without drowning it in noise.

Each module is a focused walkthrough: installing the extension, targeting the proper context, automating tasks with slash commands, managing token costs, protecting secrets, organizing shared settings, customizing your status line, and keeping a living `CLAUDE.md`. Dip into whichever lesson solves your current problem or watch them in order for a full onboarding path.

New lessons will be added here over time as Claude Code evolves. Check back for fresh tips, deeper dives, and updates that help you stay confident in this constantly improving environment.

Claude Code Essentials

Learn the fundamentals of Claude Code as well as tips and tricks for optimized workflows using the CLI in conjunction with your favorite editor.

AI Dev Essentials #23: Claude adv. file creation, Devins valuation & Gemini Select and Ask

Claude's file creation & Gemini's visual editing. Also covers Cognition's funding, Veo 3 price cuts, and a Claude Code workshop.

# AI Dev Essentials - Issue #22

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **22nd issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

This past week I actually spent some time stargazing in Bryce Canyon with my beautiful wife. It honestly felt amazing to step away from the noise of the world and appreciate the beauty of the Universe. When I got back home, I sat down to focus on planning out a Claude Code intro course which I'll be releasing on egghead.io for free. This will essentially serve as a prerequisite course for people who are planning to attend my Claude Code Power User Workshop. I'm starting recording today and hopefully you'll have something to share next week.

Sign up for the next workshop here: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### OpenAI Expands ChatGPT Projects to Free Users

**OpenAI has made ChatGPT Projects available to all free users globally, following their pattern of gradually expanding paid features to broader audiences.**

Key features for free users:
- **Project organization**: Create unlimited projects for organizing conversations by topic
- **Enhanced file uploads**: Up to 5 files per project (vs. 25 for Plus, 40 for Pro)
- **Custom project icons**: Choose colors and icons for better organization
- **Project-only memory**: Separate memory contexts for each project
- **Cross-platform access**: Available on web and Android app, with iOS rollout coming soon

This represents a major democratization of ChatGPT's advanced features, previously exclusive to paid tiers.

([OpenAI Help Center](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10169521-using-projects-in-chatgpt), [Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-rolls-out-chatgpt-projects-to-free-users-215027802.html))

> *I love the fact that the memory will be separate from other projects. One of the biggest pain points of using ChatGPT is memory leaking from one thing to another. In one chat I might be talking about an Electron app, and in another I might be talking about a Tauri app and the suggested solutions would obviously be for the wrong technology. Really happy to see these siloed separations taking place.*

### Google Intensifies AI Chip Competition Through Strategic TPU Expansion

**Google has escalated its competition with NVIDIA by approaching smaller cloud providers to host TPUs in their data centers, striking deals with providers like London-based Fluidstack.**

Strategic developments:
- **TPU v5p Performance**: 2.8x faster at training large language models compared to TPU v4
- **Market Impact**: Google's TPU sales estimated at $6-9 billion in 2024, potentially reducing NVIDIA's market share for the first time
- **Next-Gen Trillium**: Sixth-generation TPUs promise 4x boost in training performance and 3x increase in inference throughput over TPU v5e
- **Distribution Strategy**: Partnering with smaller cloud providers to expand TPU availability beyond Google Cloud

This move represents Google's most aggressive challenge to NVIDIA's AI chip dominance to date.

([TrendForce](https://www.trendforce.com/news/2025/09/04/news-google-reportedly-courts-smaller-csps-to-host-tpus-taking-aim-at-nvidia/), [Stock Titan](https://www.stocktitan.net/news/TTGT/omdia-demand-for-google-s-tpu-chips-accelerates-challenging-nvidia-s-587cj41w52lu.html))

> *NVIDIA needs the competition since they're absolutely dominating the AI chip market. The competition is good for the industry and for us as the end users. Hopefully this simply results in better products and better pricing for everyone.*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Zed Editor Integrates Claude Code via Agent Client Protocol

**Zed launched Claude Code integration in public beta through their Agent Client Protocol (ACP), bringing AI-powered coding directly into the high-performance editor.**

Integration features:
- **Native Claude Code support**: Full integration with existing Claude Code subscriptions
- **Agent Client Protocol**: Open standard specification for connecting any AI agent with any compatible editor
- **Performance optimization**: Maintains Zed's speed while adding AI capabilities
- **Multiple agent support**: Framework supports various AI agents simultaneously
- **Public beta**: Currently in beta testing phase for user feedback

The integration leverages Zed's performance advantages while providing access to Claude's coding capabilities.

([Zed's Official Blog](https://zed.dev/blog/claude-code-via-acp), [Agent Client Protocol GitHub](https://github.com/zed-industries/agent-client-protocol))

> *I always keep a close eye on Zed. And I know the performance versus convenience conversations are always difficult ones to have. I wouldn't call myself a Cursor fanboy by any means, but anytime I try another product, I just keep on coming back to it. It always feels like it's just a little something here or there that's missing that's already a major part of my workflow. But I'm cheering Zed on, and I hope that one day it's strong enough to pull me away. Claude Code integration is definitely a massive plus.*

### into.md Tool Simplifies Web Content Conversion

**The into.md tool converts any web page into clean, LLM-friendly markdown by simply prepending "into.md/" to any URL, created by Timo Lins.**

Tool capabilities:
- **Simple URL prefix**: Add "into.md/" before any URL to convert content
- **Clean markdown output**: Removes navigation, ads, and irrelevant content
- **LLM optimization**: Formatted specifically for AI processing
- **No signup required**: Works immediately without registration
- **Open tool**: Available for public use

This addresses the common need to feed web content to AI models in a clean, processable format.

([into.md Official Site](https://into.md/))

> *I love this new into.md tool because copying the content of a web page into an AI prompt is turning into a common everyday task that I pull off multiple times. I use a Chrome extension called Mark Snip for this most often. But I've run a few experiments with using into.md with curl or Node's fetch (make sure you respect redirects if you do that). And it's helped me brainstorm up some really interesting scenarios of websites as prompts that I'm looking forward to play more with.*

### Nano Banana Prompt Templates: Mastering Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

**A comprehensive guide to using Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has emerged from the community, providing six essential prompt templates for maximizing image generation quality.**

Template categories:
- **Photorealistic Scenes**: Detailed photographer-like descriptions with camera angles, lighting, and mood specifications
- **Stylized Illustrations**: Creating specific design styles like kawaii icons and custom artwork  
- **Accurate Text Rendering**: Generating logos and designs with precise text integration
- **Product Mockups**: Professional commercial photography setups
- **Minimalist Design**: Negative space compositions for websites and presentations
- **Sequential Art**: Comic panel development and narrative visual scenes

The core principle emphasized throughout: "Describe the scene, don't just list keywords." Each template provides structured approaches with Python code examples for Gemini API integration.

> *I shamefully ripped this post off of x.com and saved it as a gist for much easier copy/paste into my prompts 🫣. Here's the original post: [https://x.com/GoogleAIStudio/status/1962957615262224511](https://x.com/GoogleAIStudio/status/1962957615262224511)*

([Nano Banana Prompt Templates Gist](https://gist.github.com/johnlindquist/a198cec161f2356cc9f64e15a675529b))


### Jules Agent Introduces Sample Prompts for New Users

**Google's Jules coding agent added sample prompts to the homepage on September 2, 2025, to help new users get started with AI-assisted development.**

New user experience improvements:
- **One-click examples**: Pre-built prompts demonstrate common use cases
- **Homepage integration**: Sample prompts displayed on Jules home page for all users
- **Single-click workflow**: Add prompts to input box with one click
- **Getting started guide**: Reduces barrier to entry for new users
- **Best practices**: Shows optimal ways to interact with the agent

This addresses one of the main barriers to AI agent adoption: not knowing how to get started effectively.

([Jules Official Changelog](https://jules.google/docs/changelog/), [Jules Documentation](https://jules.google/docs))

> *Jules is one of those tools where I feel like most people are aware of its existence. But all the various experiments and tools in the Google ecosystem seem so separate that it's hard to remember what does what. I use Google's AI Studio extensively and I use Gemini extensively. But then opening up another tab to use Jules or Stitch or Flow or many of the other AI experiments, which are all amazing, just seems like a weird context switching that I hope they integrate into either Gemini or AI Studio. Again, this isn't a knock on their team at all, it's just the story of switching or trying to follow all of Google's various projects is turning into a task in and of itself.*

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem Updates

### Anthropic Addresses Claude Opus Performance Issues

**Anthropic experienced significant Claude Opus performance degradation from August 25-28, 2025, affecting Claude Opus 4.1 and 4.0 models for approximately 56.5 hours.**

Technical details:
- **Inference stack rollout**: Problematic infrastructure update caused performance issues
- **Performance degradation**: Users reported "lower intelligence, malformed responses or issues with tool calling in Claude Code"
- **Root cause identified**: Infrastructure optimization attempts backfired
- **Resolution implemented**: Rollback to stable inference architecture
- **Duration**: 56.5-hour incident affecting multiple model versions

The transparency around infrastructure issues demonstrates Anthropic's commitment to user experience.

([Anthropic Status](https://status.anthropic.com/incidents/h26lykctfnsz), [Simon Willison's analysis](https://simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/30/claude-degraded-quality/))

> *I've seen many people commenting on issues with Claude Code over the past week. Whereas I was actually out of town for most of it, so I guess my timing was perfect. But it's always good to see providers own up to their mistakes and be more transparent with why people might be having bad experiences. I know how frustrating it can be to be working at a large company and trying to tell your manager that you're not making progress because your tools aren't working as expected.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Claude Artifacts Enable Interactive App Development
- **Interactive artifacts**: Build and share functional web applications directly in Claude
- **Cost-effective sharing**: Users pay for their own API usage, not creators
- **Real-time iteration**: Modify and improve apps through conversation with dedicated artifacts panel
- **Shareable links**: One-click sharing capability for published artifacts
- **General availability**: Available to all Claude.ai users across Free, Pro, and Team plans

([Anthropic Official Announcement](https://www.anthropic.com/news/artifacts), [Anthropic Help Center](https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/11649438-prototype-ai-powered-apps-with-claude-artifacts))

### Backlog.md: Open-Source Task Management for Developers
- **Markdown-native**: Task manager and Kanban visualizer for Git repositories
- **Cross-platform**: Available on macOS, Linux, Windows with MIT licensing
- **AI-friendly**: Designed for collaboration between humans and AI agents
- **Developer workflow**: CLI and web interface with drag-and-drop functionality

([GitHub Repository](https://github.com/MrLesk/Backlog.md), [Hacker News Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44483530))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

**Claude Code Power User Workshop**

Ready to master advanced Claude Code workflows? Join the next power user workshop to learn professional automation patterns and advanced techniques.

Almost sold out! Grab your ticket before they're gone.

**Next session:** Friday, September 12, 2025
**Time:** 5:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)
**Platform:** Zoom
**🇪🇸 Europe-Friendly Time!** That's 1:00 PM in London, 2:00 PM in Paris & Berlin

Register: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #22: ChatGPT Projects, Google’s TPU Push & Zed’s Claude Code

This issue covers key AI updates, including ChatGPT's free projects, Google's aggressive TPU expansion, and new developer tools like the Zed editor and into.md

# AI Dev Essentials - Issue #21

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **21st issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

Google just obliterated the competition with their release of the new Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model (which is affectionately referred to as "Nano Banana"). It's been so consistent and predictable that my kids love using it, my parents love using it, and it's just made image generation so much more fun thanks to the consistency and things you can do. My kids especially love taking stuffed animals and turning them into superheroes and then putting them into comic books. As a an automation nerd, I've been playing around with scripts to generate storyboards then converting the storyboards into videos. I've had decent luck with it and hope to be able to iron out the workflow. I decided to record a lesson about scripting Nano Banana following a similar process on egghead, which you can see below.

I've also been spending a lot more time with Claude Code on GitHub Actions. Now I can inject AI into any of the dev ops workflows I'd typically have to subscribe to some other service for.You can run whatever you want on GitHub, whether it's the standard pull request review or fixing an issue, or it's something like generating a story on a cron job or scraping data on a webhook trigger. Essentially anything is possible, and it really brings a ton of value to a Claude Code subscription. This is definitely something I'll be covering in future Claude Code workshops. Sign up for the next workshop here: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

**Batch Generate Nano Banana Variations with AI Studio and Scripting**

Manually creating dozens of variations for a single image in a web UI is tedious and inefficient. This lesson demonstrates a powerful workflow for automating this process by leveraging Google AI Studio's "Get code" feature to build a flexible Node.js script. You'll learn how to take a simple image-to-image generation task and scale it up to create a large batch of customized images programmatically.

This approach is perfect for generating marketing assets, social media content, or character sheets where you need a consistent base character with different expressions or styles.

- GitHub Repo: [https://github.com/johnlindquist/expressions](https://github.com/johnlindquist/expressions)
- Watch the lesson: [https://egghead.io/batch-generate-nano-banana-variations-with-ai-studio-and-scripting~ks0vr](https://egghead.io/batch-generate-nano-banana-variations-with-ai-studio-and-scripting~ks0vr)

Time for the news!

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano-Banana) Dominates Image Generation Market

**Google released Gemini 2.5 Flash Image on August 26, 2025, a groundbreaking image generation model that's setting new standards for character consistency and creative control, leaving competitors scrambling to catch up.**

Revolutionary capabilities:
- **Unmatched Character Consistency**: Maintains exact character features across multiple scenes and contexts
- **Multi-Image Fusion**: Seamlessly blend elements from multiple reference images
- **Natural Language Editing**: Targeted edits via conversational prompts (blur backgrounds, remove objects, change colors)
- **World Knowledge Integration**: Leverages Gemini's understanding for contextually appropriate imagery
- **LMArena Champion**: Topped benchmarks for instruction-following and fidelity before official reveal
- **Aggressive Pricing**: $0.039 per image vs. competitors' subscription models
- **Instant Access**: Available in Gemini App (100 free edits/day) and Google AI Studio

> *You just gotta try it. Take an image of yourself, a few items from around the house, and tell Nano Banana to smash them together into some funny pose. Then just be ready to be blown away.*

([Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemini-2-5-flash-image/), [TechCrunch Coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/google-geminis-ai-image-model-gets-a-bananas-upgrade/), [Axios Report](https://www.axios.com/2025/08/26/nano-banana-google-ai-images))

### Claude Code GitHub Integration Reaches General Availability

**Claude Code's GitHub integration became generally available on August 26, 2025, unlocking powerful automation capabilities that transform how teams handle code reviews, CI failures, and issue management.**

Game-changing features:
- **Expanded Triggers**: Beyond @mentions - new issues, failed CI, custom conditions
- **Automatic CI Fix Attempts**: Claude detects and attempts to fix failing builds
- **Intelligent Code Reviews**: Validates changes against PR intent, not just syntax
- **Subagent Architecture**: Deploy specialized agents for different review types
- **Ready-to-Deploy Templates**: Pre-built workflows for common tasks
- **Issue Triage Automation**: Automatic deduplication and categorization
- **Vulnerability Detection**: Security scanning on new PRs

> *I love that this is integrated with your Claude Pro or Claude Max plans. It really takes a lot of the financial pressure off of running AI tooling for people such as myself who are trying to use AI within a budget. It's nice to be able to just pay a subscription and have it cover all my AI needs. It honestly can replace many of the code review tools or other AI tools that you're using. In fact, if you're currently using an AI tool on GitHub, you can ask Claude, "Hey, please just copy the features of this and turn it into a GitHub action that uses Claude Code."*

([Claude Code GitHub Documentation](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/github-actions))

### OpenAI Launches Codex IDE Extensions and Enhanced CLI

**OpenAI released comprehensive Codex platform updates on August 27, 2025, introducing IDE extensions, cloud integration, and enhanced CLI capabilities powered by their codex-1 model, all included in ChatGPT subscriptions.**

Platform enhancements:
- **Native IDE Extensions**: VS Code, Cursor, and fork support with full context sharing
- **Cloud-to-Local Handoff**: Start tasks in cloud, continue in IDE without losing context
- **Intelligent PR Reviews**: Validates changes against intent, checks dependencies
- **Revamped CLI**: New UI with image inputs, message queuing, web search, to-do lists
- **Unified Agent Experience**: Works across IDE, terminal, cloud, GitHub, and mobile
- **Transparent Rate Limits**: Plus/Team: 30-150 messages/5hrs, Pro: 300-1,500/5hrs
- **Codex-1 Model**: Optimized o3 variant specifically for software engineering

> *OpenAI is massively accelerating their efforts around Codex. I've had a lot of luck using the CLI tool and I've had early access to the extension, and while things aren't as perfect and polished as other IDE tools and ecosystems out there with the sheer amount of velocity they have right now, I can only see this getting better and better. GPT-5 Pro is still my go-to reasoning model for my hardest questions and using the Codex CLI with high reasoning turned on is one of my favorite planning tools as well. So, and again, I love the fact that you can now sign in with ChatGPT and essentially leverage money that you're already paying rather than the pay-as-you-go.*

([OpenAI Codex Developer Hub](https://developers.openai.com/codex/), [TechCrunch Coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/16/openai-launches-codex-an-ai-coding-agent-in-chatgpt/))

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Cursor 1.5 Brings Native OS Notifications and MCP Support

**Cursor released version 1.5 on August 26, 2025, with game-changing quality-of-life improvements for AI-assisted development.**

Version 1.5 highlights:
- **Native OS Notifications**: Get alerts when long-running agent tasks complete
- **Improved Agent Terminal UX**: Better visibility and control over agent actions
- **MCP Elicitation**: Full Model Context Protocol support
- **Enhanced Jupyter Support**: Improved notebook editing experience
- **Grok Code Integration**: New model option with competitive pricing ($0.2/1M input)
- **Claude 4 Sonnet**: Million token context window now available

> *Cursor is still my favorite IDE, and it just keeps on cranking up the polish. It'll be interesting as all these tools and IDEs start gaining the same features, how to separate themselves from the pack. The common phrase is: "there is no moat", and it'll be interesting to see if Cursor can actually create a moat for themselves.*

([Cursor 1.5 Changelog](https://cursor.com/changelog/1-5))

### Zed Editor Introduces Agent Client Protocol with Gemini Support

**Zed announced the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) on August 27, 2025, creating a universal standard for editor-agent communication.**

Protocol features:
- **Universal standard**: Blueprint for any editor to work with any AI agent
- **Gemini CLI support**: First integration with full code context
- **Multiple agents**: Run different agents simultaneously
- **Open source**: Specification available for all
- **Performance focused**: Maintains Zed's speed-first philosophy

> *I have Zed installed and I have the Gemini CLI installed, but they are two of the tools which I just have not had the time to give a fair shake. The performance of Zed is unmatched, and the context window of the Gemini CLI have been unmatched so far, and if the next version of Gemini is anything, and if Nano Banana image generation gives us any hint of the capabilities of the future Gemini coding models, I think we're really in for a treat here.*

([Zed Blog on ACP](https://zed.dev/blog/bring-your-own-agent-to-zed))

---

## 📚 AI Learning Resources

### Major AI Companies Release Comprehensive Training Guides

**OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google simultaneously released free comprehensive guides on August 28, 2025, representing thousands of hours of internal expertise now publicly available.**

Essential resources:
- **[Google's Prompting Guide](https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/gemini-for-google-workspace-prompting-guide-101.pdf)**: Complete Gemini for Workspace guide
- **[Anthropic's Building Effective Agents](https://anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents)**: Deep dive into agent architecture
- **[Anthropic's Prompt Engineering](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/overview)**: Comprehensive prompt optimization
- **[OpenAI's Agent Building Guide](https://cdn.openai.com/business-guides-and-resources/a-practical-guide-to-building-agents.pdf)**: Practical examples and patterns
- **[OpenAI's Scaling AI Use Cases](https://cdn.openai.com/business-guides-and-resources/identifying-and-scaling-ai-use-cases.pdf)**: Enterprise integration strategies

> *These are some awesome guides that are pretty popular that I realized I hadn't included in previous newsletters. So here you go!*

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem Updates

### Anthropic and OpenAI's Unprecedented Safety Collaboration

**In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, OpenAI and Anthropic ran each other's internal safety evaluations on publicly released models and shared results publicly on August 27, 2025.**

Key findings:
- **Cross-evaluation methodology**: Each ran their safety tests on the other's models
- **Transparency milestone**: Results shared publicly for community benefit
- **Sycophancy issues**: Both identified "extreme sycophancy" across models
- **Model differences**: Claude refused 70% of uncertain questions vs. higher hallucination in OpenAI
- **Industry precedent**: First public collaboration between AI competitors

> *It is awesome to see the major providers working together. I know I easily get sick of the hype cycles and the benchmark maxing and the comparisons when if everyone just kind of worked and collaborated more, we could be making much more progress in a much more responsible way.*

([OpenAI Safety Blog](https://openai.com/index/openai-anthropic-safety-evaluation/), [Anthropic Research Blog](https://alignment.anthropic.com/2025/openai-findings/))

### Anthropic Launches Claude for Chrome Browser Extension

**Anthropic announced Claude for Chrome on August 26, 2025, a research preview for browser automation, initially available to 1,000 Max plan users.**

Extension capabilities:
- **Browser automation**: Claude performs actions on your behalf
- **Limited rollout**: 1,000 user pilot for real-world testing
- **Safety focus**: Addressing prompt injection vulnerabilities
- **Max plan exclusive**: Waitlist available for subscribers

> *Again, being able to have all of this under a single subscription plan with Anthropic is still one of the major draws here. Like even if it's not quite as good as many of the other solutions that are out there, many of the other solutions out there just wrap Anthropic's APIs for a lot of the agentic work so having Anthropic come in and build their own tooling is really gonna upset a lot of tools.*

([Anthropic Announcement](http://anthropic.com/news/claude-for-chrome), [Waitlist](http://claude.ai/chrome))

### Google's NotebookLM Major Upgrade

**NotebookLM announced significant updates on August 26, 2025, evolving into a full knowledge synthesis platform.**

New features:
- **Studio UI**: Generate multiple outputs from single source
- **Video Overviews**: Slide-style summaries with narration
- **Featured Notebooks**: Pre-built notebooks on trending topics
- **Customization Box**: Tailor depth and expertise level
- **Shareable Links**: Public notebook sharing

> *NotebookLM often gets lost in the noise around all the other products out there, but it's definitely worth coming back to over and over again if you're someone who is collecting notes, data, research, etc for any project.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Microsoft Releases VibeVoice TTS Model
- **Open source**: 1.5B parameter model with MIT license
- **Long-form audio**: Generate up to 90 minutes
- **Multi-speaker**: Simultaneous generation of 4+ voices
- **Cross-lingual**: Supports multiple languages and singing
([VibeVoice on HuggingFace](https://huggingface.co/microsoft/VibeVoice-1.5B))

### Google Vids Surpasses 1 Million Users
- **AI-powered editing**: Automated video creation features
- **Team collaboration**: Built for workplace video needs
([Google Workspace Blog](http://goo.gle/3UNWISl))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

**Claude Code Power User Workshop**

Want to take your Claude skill to the next level? This workshop is for you!

The past 3 workshops have all sold out, so make sure to grab a spot before they're gone.

**Next session:** Friday, September 12, 2025
**Time:** 5:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)
**Platform:** Zoom
**🇪🇸 Europe-Friendly Time!** That's 1:00 PM in London, 2:00 PM in Paris & Berlin

Register: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #21: Google nano banana, Claude Code on GitHub, and OpenAI Codex updates

This week's AI Dev Essentials dives into Google's groundbreaking 'Nano Banana' image model, Claude Code's new GitHub automations, and OpenAI Codex updates

## Subscribe to the AI Dev Essentials newsletter!

[https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials](https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials)

## Github Repo

[https://github.com/johnlindquist/expressions](https://github.com/johnlindquist/expressions)

Manually creating dozens of variations for a single image in a web UI is tedious and inefficient. This lesson demonstrates a powerful workflow for automating this process by leveraging Google AI Studio's "Get code" feature to build a flexible Node.js script. You'll learn how to take a simple image-to-image generation task and scale it up to create a large batch of customized images programmatically.

This approach is perfect for generating marketing assets, social media content, or character sheets where you need a consistent base character with different expressions or styles.

## The Workflow

1.  **From UI to Code:** Start by performing a single image variation task in Google AI Studio's Gemini Native Image interface. Then, use the "Get code" button to export the entire interaction—including the Base64-encoded source image and text prompt—as a ready-to-run TypeScript snippet.
2.  **Project Setup:** Set up a new Node.js project using a modern runtime like Bun for speed and simplicity. This includes initializing the project, installing the necessary Google GenAI and MIME type packages, and configuring your environment.
3.  **API Key Management:** Securely manage your Google AI API key by creating a `.env` file. This keeps your credentials out of your source code and makes your script portable.
4.  **Script Refactoring for Automation:** Refactor the initial code snippet for scalability:
    *   Replace the hardcoded Base64 image data with a dynamic file read operation, allowing you to easily swap the source image.
    *   Create an array of text prompts to define all the variations you want to generate (e.g., different emotions, accessories, or styles).
    *   Wrap the API call in a loop that iterates through your prompts.
5.  **Adding Robustness:** Enhance the script with essential features like:
    *   **Error Handling:** Implement `try...catch` blocks to ensure that if one image generation fails, the entire script doesn't crash.
    *   **Descriptive Logging:** Add extensive `console.log` statements to monitor the script's progress, see which image is currently being processed, and get final statistics.
    *   **Unique File Naming:** Programmatically generate unique filenames for each output image, often including a timestamp and the specific prompt used, to keep your assets organized.
6.  **Leveraging AI for Development (Bonus):** This lesson also showcases how a modern, AI-powered editor like Cursor can accelerate the script-building process itself—from generating the list of expressions to refactoring code and fixing stubborn TypeScript errors.

By the end of this lesson, you'll have a powerful, reusable script and a streamlined workflow for generating image variations at scale, moving beyond the limitations of manual UI-based creation.

### AI Prompts

~~~markdown
Please install all the missing dependencies.
~~~

~~~markdown
Please add extensive console logging. This is going to be a script and we want to see all of the progress and everything that's happening in the terminal.
~~~

~~~markdown
Please generate an array of ten expressions covering the wide variety of human emotions.
~~~

~~~markdown
Please insert a formatted date to the beginning of the file name.
~~~

~~~markdown
Please add error handling so that if one generation fails it doesn't block the entire script, and please create a way to track and report in the terminal at the end all of the images that did fail in preparation to attempt to generate them in the future.
~~~

### Terminal Commands

~~~bash
take expressions
~~~

~~~bash
c
~~~

~~~bash
bun init
~~~

~~~bash
bun i @google/genai mime
~~~

~~~bash
bun run index.ts
~~~

### Code Snippets

**Environment Variables (`.env`)**

To securely store your API key, create a `.env` file in your project root.

~~~
GEMINI_API_KEY=AIzaSyDt...
~~~

**Reading the Source Image**

Instead of a hardcoded Base64 string, dynamically read your source image and convert it.

~~~typescript
import { readFile, writeFile } from 'fs/promises';

// ...

const buffer = await readFile('./ai-dev.jpg');
const data = buffer.toString('base64');
~~~

**Defining Expressions to Generate**

Create an array of prompts to loop through. This list was generated by an AI assistant.

~~~typescript
const expressions = [
  'expression: joy, wide smile, sparkling eyes, raised eyebrows',
  'expression: sadness, downcast eyes, furrowed brows, slight frown',
  'expression: anger, narrowed eyes, clenched jaw, furrowed brows',
  'expression: fear, wide eyes, raised eyebrows, open mouth, tense expression',
  'expression: surprise, wide eyes, raised eyebrows, open mouth, shocked expression',
  'expression: disgust, wrinkled nose, narrowed eyes, curled upper lip',
  'expression: contempt, one raised eyebrow, slight smirk, sideways glance',
  'expression: love, soft eyes, gentle smile, relaxed facial muscles',
  'expression: confusion, furrowed brows, tilted head, puzzled expression',
  'expression: excitement, wide smile, bright eyes, flushed cheeks, energetic expression'
];
~~~

Batch Generate Nano Banana Variations with AI Studio and Scripting

Learn how to automate the creation of multiple image variations by exporting code from Google AI Studio and building a powerful Node.js script.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **20th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

This past week, I've been digging in to customizing Claude Code GitHub Actions. Claude Code now officially supports using your subscription to generate an API key which allows you to use it on GitHub for cron jobs, pull requests, and anything GitHub Actions supports. This is a huge unlock for both cost savings and building your own code maintenance, review agents, etc. Excited to share more about this in the future.

I've been keeping a close eye on OpenAI's Codex CLI with the recent release of GPT-5. They've been making incredible progress and just last night they'll enabled configuring the reasoning effort. Add `model_reasoning_effort = "high"` to your `~/.config/codex/config.toml` file to maximize _every_ codex session :)

I'm really, really enjoying following the reasoning logic of Codex and watching its thinking progress. It's arguably the best reasoning experience I've seen in a CLI and I'm seriously tempted to use it as the starting point for all of my coding tasks then piping the plans into Claude Code to execute... I'll update you next week on that experience.

Lastly, I also recorded and published five lessons focusing on building custom agents in Claude Code. This is an area I'm extremely passionate about and is a huge unlock for overcoming the "stuck" feeling you sometimes get when starting a new session. I'm excited to cover all of this and more in my upcoming workshop: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

**Automating Development Workflows with Claude Code Agents**

A collection of practical recipes for automating your development workflow with custom-built Claude Code agents. This course provides a hands-on guide where you'll learn to craft precise system prompts to create reliable, single-purpose agents, package them as simple command-line tools using bun build, and grant them the autonomy to complete multi-step tasks like web research and file creation.

5 lessons covering:
- Crafting precise system prompts for single-purpose agents
- Packaging agents as command-line tools with bun build
- Building autonomous multi-step task workflows
- Web research automation strategies
- File creation and management patterns

Check out the course here:
[https://egghead.io/courses/claude-code-automation-cookbook-recipes-for-ai-agents~tsilh](https://egghead.io/courses/claude-code-automation-cookbook-recipes-for-ai-agents~tsilh)

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### AGENTS.md: The New Standard for AI Agent Context

**The AI coding ecosystem has coalesced around AGENTS.md as a standardized format for providing context and instructions to coding agents, with support from major players including OpenAI, Cursor, Google's Jules, and More.**

Key details:
- **Neutral naming**: OpenAI Codex team chose AGENTS.md to encourage broad adoption
- **Industry alignment**: Major coding assistants now recognize and use this file
- **Open source**: Microsite and specification available on GitHub
- **Renaissance moment**: Marks shift from fragmented approaches to unified standard
- **Immediate adoption**: Already supported across major tools

> *I really hope everyone gets on board with a standardized agents file. I've personally built multiple libraries trying to solve this, especially with how different Cursor's agent files were compared to other tools. I think it's a huge win, even if everyone just agrees on a single markdown file. That way we could at least symlink or easily copy to keep multiple agents in sync. I'm definitely working more and more with multiple agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Gemini all in the same codebase, and I don't even want to think about maintaining rules between them. It's just a painful thing to worry about and manage.*

([AGENTS.md Official Site](http://agents.md/), [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/openai/agents.md))


### Browser Use 0.6.0: Breaking Free from Playwright

**Browser Use has completely rewritten their web automation framework, moving from Playwright to Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) for better performance and stealth.**

Technical improvements:
- **No WebDriver requirement**: Direct CDP connection eliminates WebDriver overhead
- **Less detectable**: Removes Playwright fingerprints that sites detect
- **Faster execution**: Direct protocol access improves speed significantly
- **Better performance**: Lower memory usage and faster operations
- **Maintained compatibility**: Existing scripts work with minimal changes

> *I initially wrote off Browser Use because the Playwright MCP is already so good that I didn't see any reason to use something that leveraged Playwright. But if you look at the Chrome DevTools Protocol and the low level access that gives you to so many things in Chrome, this is definitely a tool I need to revisit for complex scenarios and manipulating the browser. The idea of having access to memory profiling, network interception at the protocol level, and runtime JavaScript compilation control is very enticing, though I haven't had a chance to use these features yet.*

([Browser Use GitHub Release](https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use/releases))

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### OpenAI Codex CLI Works With Your ChatGPT Login

**OpenAI's Codex CLI now integrates directly with your ChatGPT Plus subscription, bringing AI-powered coding assistance to your terminal without additional API costs.**

> *This is one of those things that makes your ChatGPT account that much more valuable and brings it closer to parity with Claude Code. As OpenAI's Codex keeps improving, and many people are seeing great results by using it with high thinking turned on, it becomes a much better value proposition to run both Codex and Claude Code in your same workflows.*

### Claude Code Status Line Customization

**The new Status Line feature in Claude Code provides at-a-glance information about your coding session, with various customization options available.**

> *I really love the new Status Line feature of Claude Code. It's a very simple thing, but it helps keep the main information up front in your face. There's lots of ways to customize it, but I just use the default PowerLine one.*

([Claude PowerLine GitHub](https://github.com/Owloops/claude-powerline))

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem & Business Updates

### Google Expands AI Studio GitHub Integration

**Google AI Studio now features direct GitHub integration, allowing developers to commit changes directly from the AI Studio interface.**

Integration capabilities:
- **Direct commits**: Push changes without leaving AI Studio
- **Branch management**: Create and switch branches from UI
- **Authentication**: Seamless GitHub account connection
- **Project sync**: Keep AI experiments synchronized with repos
- **Collaborative workflows**: Share AI-generated code with teams

> *I've loved AI Studio since day one and they're continuing to add amazing features and updates. It's so easy to spike out some idea in the browser and then just copy and paste the generated code and grab a token. It's a beautiful experience and I love seeing it grow. The GitHub integration is going to be really interesting to see how much of a dev tool AI Studio can really turn into. One tip I could give you is that AI Studio is even easy to use on mobile, and it's one of my favorite AI mobile experiences for development.*

([Google AI Studio](http://ai.studio/))

### OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Go in India

**OpenAI has introduced a new affordable tier specifically for the Indian market at Rs. 399 ($4.80 USD), marking their first region-specific pricing strategy.**

Subscription details:
- **Price point**: Rs. 399 per month (approximately $4.80 USD)
- **Features**: 10x higher limits than free tier across all metrics
- **Payment**: Native UPI support for Indian users
- **Localization**: All pricing now shown in Indian Rupees
- **Strategy**: Testing ground for global expansion of affordable tiers

### ElevenLabs Launches Chat Mode for Voice Agents

**ElevenLabs has released Chat Mode, enabling developers to deploy conversational AI agents with natural voice interactions through simple SDKs or a single line of HTML.**

Technical capabilities:
- **Simple deployment**: One line of HTML for basic integration
- **SDK support**: Full-featured SDKs for advanced use cases
- **Music generation**: Now includes ElevenLabs Music for audio backgrounds
- **Real-time processing**: Low-latency voice interactions
- **Cross-platform**: Works on web, mobile, and desktop

([ElevenLabs Conversational AI](https://convai.new/))

---

## 💻 Cursor Corner

### Cursor CLI Gets Major Update

**Cursor CLI now includes MCP support, Review Mode, compression commands, and improved file selection, bringing desktop features to the command line.**

New CLI features:
- **MCP servers**: Use .cursor/mcp.json definitions
- **Review Mode**: Ctrl+R for change review and follow-ups
- **Context compression**: /compress to free up context window
- **@-file selection**: Reference files and folders directly
- **Token counting**: Visual indicators for context usage
- **AGENTS.md support**: Automatic recognition of new standard

> *The race to be the best CLI tool between Claude Code and the Cursor CLI and Codex and Gemini and all of the other options available is almost funny to watch because the one thing AI is really great at is building CLI tools. So I always imagine in my head each company aggressively prompting their AIs to write better CLI tools than their competitors, and borrowing features while at the same time leveraging each other's CLI tools to accomplish these goals. I almost wish they'd all just get together and figure out the best one, but in the end I know competition will bring out the best tools possible.*

([Cursor CLI](http://cursor.com/cli))

### New Stealth Model Available in Cursor

**Cursor has quietly launched access to a mysterious new model from an unnamed partner, available free to all users for testing.**

What we know:
- **Free access**: Available to all Cursor users at no charge
- **Performance**: Early reports suggest strong coding capabilities
- **Mystery partner**: Cursor team keeping the source confidential
- **Experimental phase**: Gathering user feedback for improvements
- **Integration**: Works seamlessly with existing Cursor features

> *It's fascinating to watch the sheer pace of new models being released. It feels like the "new JavaScript framework every week" era, but now it's a new model every week and it's impossible to keep up. To be honest, the only model updates I'm looking forward to right now are the Anthropic updates and the Google updates. Both are promising significant leaps forward. I've kind of given up trying to follow all the other companies because every time I try them, the tooling just isn't there. No matter how good the model is, if the tooling doesn't support it, then for me it's just not worth it. So I always look to the companies that are invested in both the models and the tooling to make their models perform the best.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Anthropic's Claude Can Now End Conversations
- Experimental feature for Opus 4 and 4.1 models
- Last resort for persistently harmful conversations
- Part of model welfare research initiatives
- Most users will never encounter this behavior

([Anthropic Research](https://www.anthropic.com/research/end-subset-conversations))

### DeepSeek V3.1 Released
- Upgraded reasoning and code generation capabilities
- Improved performance on complex tasks
- Available through API and web interface
- Community reports significant improvements

([DeepSeek V3.1](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3.1-Base))

### Google Whisk Expands Globally with Veo 3
- Now available in 77 countries
- Adds 8-second video generation with audio
- 5 free animations monthly for all users
- Higher limits for Google AI subscribers

([Google Labs](https://labs.google))

### Google Flow Doubles AI Credits
- 100M+ videos generated to date
- Ultra users get 2x AI credits
- New @FlowbyGoogle account for tips and updates
- Improved generation speed and quality

([Google Labs](https://labs.google))

### Gemini URL Context Now Production-Ready
- Direct URL processing for web pages, PDFs, images
- No additional tool cost, just token pricing
- Automatic content extraction and parsing
- Available in AI Studio and API

([Gemini API Documentation](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/url-context))

### Imagen 4 Generally Available
- Three tiers: Ultra ($0.06), Standard ($0.04), Fast ($0.02)
- Up to 2K resolution output
- 10x faster than previous generation
- Improved text rendering and typography

([Google AI Studio](https://aistudio.google.com/prompts/new_image))

### MCP Security Vulnerabilities Discovered
- SQL injection bypass in PostgreSQL MCP servers
- Access control weaknesses identified
- Highlights importance of security reviews
- Community working on hardening guidelines

([Node.js Security Blog](https://www.nodejs-security.com/blog/how-to-bypass-access-control-in-postgresql-in-simple-psql-mcp-server-for-sql-injection))

### Claude Learning Styles Now Available to All
- Previously exclusive to Claude for Education
- "Explanatory" mode for detailed reasoning
- "Learning" mode for guided problem-solving
- Available in Claude Code via /output-style

([Claude Documentation](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/output-styles))

### Jules Agent Adds GitHub Export
- Export code to GitHub at any time during tasks
- Create branches and pull requests mid-task
- Increased VM disk space to 20GB
- Better handling of large dependencies

([Jules Agent](https://jules.google/))

### GPT-5 Prompting Best Practices Released
- Six essential tips for GPT-5 coding
- Emphasis on explicit instructions and planning
- Treat prompts like code: version and test
- Ask model to plan approach before coding

([OpenAI GPT-5 Guide PDF](https://cdn.openai.com/API/docs/gpt-5-for-coding-cheatsheet.pdf))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### ONLY A COUPLE TICKETS LEFT 👀 Claude Code Power User Workshop - This Friday, August 22nd

Following multiple sold-out sessions, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for **this Friday, August 22nd at 9am PDT**.

What we'll cover:
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

**Register here**: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #20: Claude on GitHub, AGENTS.md & GPT-5 Updates

Explore Claude Code GitHub Actions, GPT-5 updates, AGENTS.md standard, new AI tools, and workflows in AI Dev Essentials Issue #20.

A collection of practical recipes for automating your development workflow with custom-built Claude Code agents. This course provides a hands-on guide where you'll learn to craft precise system prompts to create reliable, single-purpose agents, package them as simple command-line tools using bun build, and grant them the autonomy to complete multi-step tasks like web research and file creation.

Claude Code Automation Cookbook: Recipes for AI Agents

Automate your dev workflow with Claude Code agents. Learn to craft precise prompts, package tools with bun, and build reliable multi-step automation.

# AI Dev Essentials - Issue #19

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **19th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

I spent the past week building out an app to streamline "video prompting". I'll put out a call for beta testers next week 😇

Throughout the process, I've had really good experiences asking Claude Code to drive CLIs (gcloud, vercel, and GitHub) to accomplish tasks like setting up storage buckets, managing permissions, and auto-fixing failed GitHub actions. These tasks used to be extremely painful days wasted diving into complicated settings pages. Thanks to AI's understanding of CLIs, their flags, and their options, it can run the right commands in one shot, verify they're working, and then send you the URLs to confirm. Honsestly, using CLIs with natural langague has taken off so much weight and boredom of chore work and allowed me to focus on the fun stuff. Anyone else felt the same?

I'll be recording some videos based on this week's experiences tomorrow, so I should be posting some interesting videos to egghead soon. They just didn't quite make the cutoff for today's newsletter.

The rest of the time I spent polishing up materials for my Claude Code workshop next Friday. I'm really enjoying teaching all of these powerhouse workflows and excited to share the countless hours of work I've put into them with you.

These Claude Code workshops keep selling out, so grab your ticket now: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

On to the news!

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### GPT-5's Rocky Launch Leaves Developers Divided

**OpenAI released GPT-5 on August 7, 2025, but the highly anticipated launch has been met with confusion and frustration as the model fails to live up to pre-release hype.**

The reality check:
- **Preview vs. Production**: Developers who tested preview models report significant degradation in production
- **Performance issues**: Widespread complaints about speed, especially in IDEs like Cursor where it's "absolutely painful to use"
- **Routing confusion**: Unclear how the model decides between instant responses and deeper reasoning
- **Mixed reception**: Community feedback ranges from "underwhelming" to questioning if they're using it wrong
- **Integration problems**: Slowness and inconsistent behavior across different platforms

What was promised vs. delivered:
- **Promise**: Breakthrough reasoning with intelligent routing
- **Reality**: Inconsistent performance that has developers reverting to Claude or GPT-4
- **Promise**: Enhanced agentic capabilities for development
- **Reality**: Speed issues make it impractical for real-time coding assistance

([OpenAI Official Blog](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5/), [Cursor Community Forum](https://forum.cursor.com/t/gpt-5-slow-very-slow/127337))

> My personal experience with GPT-5 started strong. Right at launch things felt like they were working really well, but then performance degraded over the week. I tried it both inside Cursor and via the Cursor CLI and had a very mixed experience. Sometimes it was great; other times it failed in ways that made it hard to build trust.
>
> That said, with GPT-5 Pro through ChatGPT on the $200 per month plan, I have had incredible experiences solving difficult problems in video recording workflows, refactoring asynchronous code, and other complex tasks that require deep reasoning and a strong understanding of the code. I have seen it optimize code, add edge case handling, cover a wide range of tasks, and get it right the first time. It also creates clear plans that I can hand to other tools. I am using GPT-5 Pro constantly, and right now it is my go to for planning.
>
> Claude Code is still king for me when it comes to agent work, mostly because it's been the most reliable and because of its pacing and feedback. A lot of my GPT-5 sessions show twenty or more tool calls with no explanation, which doesn't provide much insight into what's happening. I hope they take notes from Claude Code on surfacing incremental updates and briefly explaining what's going on.
>
> I get worried when GPT-5 seems like it's doing a lot of work without checking in. Until the visibility and reliability improve, I'll keep leaning on Claude Code for serious agent tasks. We'll see how both the Cursor CLI and Codex improve over time. It would take a massive turnaround for them to truly compete with the experience of Claude Code, especially when it comes to building true AI pipelines.

### Claude Expands Context Window to 1 Million Tokens

**Anthropic announced on August 12, 2025, that Claude Sonnet 4 now supports 1 million tokens of context on the Anthropic API, representing a 5x increase from the previous 200,000 token limit.**

Technical details:
- **Context window**: 1 million tokens (approximately 750,000 words)
- **Availability**: API access for Sonnet 4
- **Use cases**: Large codebases, extensive documentation, multi-file analysis
- **Performance**: Maintained speed despite increased context

([Anthropic Official Announcement](https://www.anthropic.com/news/1m-context), [TechCrunch Coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/12/anthropics-claude-ai-model-can-now-handle-longer-prompts/))

> It is exciting to see more providers catch up with Gemini and offer a one million token context window. Early research suggests Anthropic is doing very well at understanding the full window and keeping responses coherent as conversations get longer.
>
> This just shipped and it's not available in Claude Code yet (even if you try to hack it in, lol).
>
> I am curious whether Gemini will counter with a ten million token context window. There are rumors they have it working internally, but it's not cost efficient to release yet. Given their recent moves, it feels like Gemini is sitting on something significant. I hope they release it to the public soon.

### GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke Departs to Found New Startup

**After nearly four years as CEO, Thomas Dohmke announced on August 11, 2025, his departure from GitHub to become a startup founder again.**

Impact and transition:
- **Legacy**: Led GitHub through significant growth and AI integration era
- **GitHub Copilot**: Oversaw development and expansion of AI coding assistant
- **New venture**: Details of startup not yet announced
- **Transition**: Will remain through end of 2025

([GitHub Official Blog](https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/goodbye-github/), [Tech Startups Coverage](https://techstartups.com/2025/08/11/github-ceo-thomas-dohmke-steps-down-to-launch-new-startup-after-ai-driven-tenure/))

> It is curious to see the GitHub CEO leave at this specific moment when many AI enabled tooling companies are "accelerating" (sorry for the buzzword). It makes it smell like GitHub missed the AI boat and are trying to course correct, but I'm making massive assumptions here. I'm just surprised and curious if there's more to the story.

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Gemini CLI Updates and VS Code Integration

**Google released significant updates to Gemini CLI during the week of August 4, 2025, including deep VS Code integration and performance enhancements.**

Updates include:
- **VS Code integration**: Native integration with context-aware workflows (v0.1.20)
- **Performance**: Faster response times and improved reliability
- **Guided Learning**: New AI tutor feature using LearnLM and Gemini 2.5 Pro
- **Fine-tuning**: Supervised fine-tuning available for Gemini 2.5 Flash

([Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/gemini-cli-vs-code-native-diffing-context-aware-workflows/), [Google Guided Learning](https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/guided-learning/))

> I love seeing the updates to the Gemini CLI. They might be moving a little slower than some others, but they are doing all the right things.
>
> The biggest unlock everyone is waiting for is Gemini becoming a stronger agentic model that can keep up with the models from Anthropic. If Gemini releases a 2.6 or a 3.0 that lets Pro create plans and lets Flash execute those plans, and bundles that with a one million plus context window, we will have something special on our hands.

### Chrome's Built-in AI: Prompt API Now Available

**Google's Prompt API for Chrome enables free, local AI capabilities directly in the browser powered by Gemini Nano, available from Chrome 138 stable.**

Technical specifications:
- **Local execution**: All processing done locally with no data sent to external servers
- **Privacy-first**: Supports offline usage with complete data privacy
- **Chrome Extensions**: Available for extension developers from Chrome 138
- **Model**: Powered by Gemini Nano
- **Use cases**: Text generation, summarization, translation

([Chrome for Developers - Prompt API](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/prompt-api), [Chrome for Developers - Built-in AI](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in))

> Many people would be surprised by how many AI tools are now built into Chrome. Both the developer tooling and the browser internals are moving toward running models directly in the browser. It feels like Chrome is doing important work that will shape what sites can do, where a site does not need to rely on external AI services for basic features.
>
> On my Script Kit site I have a scenario where a user selection should present autocomplete like options. That is one of the first things I am going to try with the Prompt API. Let someone click a button and get a few suggested options. It does not need much intelligence. It just needs something small and fast. If I can offload that work to the browser that is a huge win for owning the entire workflow rather than relying on providers to be up.
>
> API providers do go down, have issues, and sometimes create poor user experiences. The more control we have over the AI when building our own tools, the better.
>
> I also need to make lessons and tutorials on the AI developer tools inside Chrome DevTools. There is a lot to cover and they are doing incredible work.

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem & Business Updates

### MCP-UI Protocol Gains Momentum

**The Model Context Protocol UI extension is gaining traction as an open RFC being considered for adoption into the MCP specification.**

Development updates:
- **RFC stage**: Open RFC under consideration, may change as proposal advances
- **Component layer**: Enables AI agents to return fully interactive UI components
- **Community adoption**: Growing ecosystem of MCP-UI compatible tools
- **Shopify development**: Shopify actively developing and promoting the protocol

([Shopify Engineering](https://shopify.engineering/mcp-ui-breaking-the-text-wall), [Block/Goose Blog](https://block.github.io/goose/blog/2025/08/11/mcp-ui-post-browser-world/))

> This specification feels important for the future of how we interact with AI tools and AI conversations. The idea of just in time user interfaces that are rendered by MCPs could change everything. At the high end it might replace websites. A more moderate view is that it will give you rich user interfaces on mobile when you are chatting with GPT and Claude and the tools you use every day. Instead of only text you get buttons and controls.
>
> One of my favorite things to do with Claude on mobile, which can render a canvas, is to ask it to create interactive charts and interactive timelines. Instead of a static diagram you can get an animated diagram that you can drag and change. That experience feels like the future.
>
> Bringing those kinds of experiences into the general flow of any tool I use feels like an ideal direction for where MCPs could go. I am cheering this project on.

### Jules Agent Enhances Code Review Capabilities

**Google introduced the Jules Critic feature on August 8, 2025, acting as an internal peer reviewer integrated directly into the code generation process.**

Key features:
- **Automated review**: Flags potential bugs and inefficient code patterns
- **Adversarial review**: Challenges proposed changes before developers see output
- **Integration**: Works seamlessly with existing Jules workflow
- **Reliability**: Significantly improves code robustness

([Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/meet-jules-sharpest-critic-and-most-valuable-ally/), [Jules Changelog](https://jules.google/docs/changelog/))

> I have seen so many code review tools at this point that I am not surprised when another one appears. I built my own code review tools last year, so I know this is something I could build myself.
>
> No matter how talented I may or may not be, seeing teams at companies like Google build their own code review tools is not an impressive achievement. It feels like a must have feature now. It also feels odd that GitHub has code review, and then Cursor, CodeRabbit, and others are adding their own code review layers on top.
>
> I am curious if anyone has stacked every code review tool on a single pull request. I would love to see a battle royale of code review tools reviewing nonsense code just for fun.

---

## 💻 Cursor Corner

### GPT-5 Integration Tips and Best Practices

**The Cursor community has been sharing optimal configurations for GPT-5 integration following its release.**

Configuration recommendations:
- **Model selection**: Use `gpt-5` (full reasoning model) with Agent mode and MAX mode enabled
- **Performance notes**: Users continue reporting significant slowness issues with GPT-5 in Cursor
- **Prompting differences**: GPT-5 requires different strategies, focusing on clarity and autonomous behavior rather than explicit instruction
- **Cost considerations**: Higher reasoning modes significantly increase costs through additional reasoning tokens

([OpenAI GPT-5 Documentation](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-for-developers/), [GPT-5 Prompting Guide](https://cookbook.openai.com/examples/gpt-5/gpt-5_prompting_guide), [Cursor GPT-5 Blog](https://cursor.com/en/blog/gpt-5))

Community feedback:
- Mixed initial reactions with improvement after configuration adjustments
- Speed improvements noted after backend optimizations
- Best results with high reasoning effort for complex tasks

> As with any new model there are growing pains in the integration between the model and the IDEs. I do not usually expect this many growing pains on the model side, but this round feels different.
>
> It will take some time before both the model and the IDE settle into an optimized workflow that most people are happy with. That likely means we need some patience for the tools to shine and for the model to fully represent what it is capable of.
>
> If you are fumbling with Cursor right now trying to get GPT-5 to meet your expectations, you are not alone.

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Mistral Small 3.1 Release
- New small-tier model with improved reasoning and code generation
- Enhanced performance while maintaining efficiency
- Available through major API providers

([Mistral AI Models](https://mistral.ai/models))

### Google AI Studio Redesign
- New landing page and improved user interface
- Better model selection and comparison tools
- Enhanced documentation and examples

### Fine-tuning OpenAI's GPT-OSS Locally
- GPT-OSS models (120B and 20B) available under Apache 2.0 license
- Community tutorials through Unsloth and Hugging Face
- 100% local execution maintaining privacy

([OpenAI GPT-OSS Announcement](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-oss/), [Unsloth Documentation](https://docs.unsloth.ai/basics/gpt-oss-how-to-run-and-fine-tune))

### Higgsfield Platform Updates
- Enhanced video generation with Seedance Pro unlimited access
- Supports MiniMax Hailuo-02, Veo 3, and Seedance Pro models
- Image-to-video conversion for creative workflows

([Higgsfield Official Site](https://higgsfield.ai/), [Seedance Pro Launch](https://deepnewz.com/software/higgsfield-launches-bytedances-seedance-pro-ai-unlimited-free-generations-30-4116cf9a))

### Claude Chat History References
- New on-demand recall of past conversations for Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers
- Privacy-focused approach requiring explicit user prompts
- Improved context preservation across sessions

([Anthropic Announcement](https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/anthropic-brings-demand-chat-history-190710803.html), [Business Today](https://www.businesstoday.in/amp/technology/news/story/anthropic-adds-chat-history-recall-to-claude-letting-users-resume-projects-across-devices-489000-2025-08-12))


## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### Claude Code Power User Workshop - Next Friday, August 22nd

Following our two sold-out workshops, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for this **Friday, August 22nd at 9am PDT**

What we'll cover:
- Advanced subagent orchestration patterns
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

**Register here**: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---

Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #19: GPT-5's Mixed Debut, GitHub CEO Exits, & Claude's 1M Token Window

AI Dev Essentials #19 dives into GPT-5’s rocky launch, Claude’s 1M token context, new AI tooling updates, and tips for boosting CLI workflows with AI.

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **18th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

I'll egostically start with a nice note I received about my first Claude Code Power User workshop 😇

"John’s workshop revealed that I was barely scratching the surface with Claude Code. I’d used features like agents and hooks before, but never to this extent. It was top notch! Insightful, straight to the point and brilliantly structured. We could have easily carried on for another 5 hours!" - Vitor Correa

We've almost sold out for this Friday's workshop too, so last chance to sign up! [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

My time this past week as been spent with:
1. n8n + claude code - I'm building more power user automation workflows that leverage your Claude Code account
2. egghead.io Lessons - I pushed out 5 new lessons about Advance Context Engineering
3. Experimenting with Gemini "Deep Think" - I'm getting some pretty incredible results, but I'm limited to 5 questions per day. I limit my questions to the most impactful personal life improvements, so they're all pretty private. Hopefully they'll allow more requests soon that I can use as demos and lessons.
4. Claude Code course structure - I'm taking all the feedback/experience from the first workshop to tighten up demos and polish the examples. Honestly have so much fun with this.

It's been a wild week of news so far (and apparently gpt5 is dropping tomorrow???), so let's jump right into it!

---

### 🎓 New egghead.io Lessons This Week

#### **Advanced Context Engineering with Claude Code**

The first 5 lessons of the Advanced Context Engineering course are live!

1. Pipe, Redirect, and Automate AI Output in the Terminal
2. Dynamic AI Prompts: Templating with Gomplate
3. Total Context Control: Gomplate Plugins meet Repomix
4. Cloud or Local: A Unified AI Workflow with Ollama and Claude
5. From AI to API: Enforcing Structured Output with JSON Schema and Zod


Check out the course here:

[https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-context-engineering-with-claude-code~z22lo](https://egghead.io/courses/advanced-context-engineering-with-claude-code~z22lo)

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### OpenAI Releases GPT-OSS: State-of-the-Art Open Source Reasoning Model

**OpenAI shocked the industry on August 5, 2025, by releasing gpt-oss, their first open-weights reasoning model that matches o1-mini performance while running on consumer hardware.**

Technical specifications:
- **Models**: gpt-oss-120B (117B total, 5.1B active) and gpt-oss-20B (21B total, 3.6B active)
- **Performance**: Comparable to o1-mini on reasoning tasks
- **Local execution**: 120B runs on high-end laptops, 20B runs on phones
- **Architecture**: Mixture-of-experts with sparse activation
- **Response format**: New "Harmony" structured output format
- **Safety**: Internal benchmarks match frontier models, biosecurity mitigations included

Key integrations:
- **Groq**: 1,100+ tokens/sec for 20B, 500+ tokens/sec for 120B
- **Context**: 128K tokens with built-in tools (code execution, browser search)
- **Availability**: Hugging Face, GitHub, and major cloud providers


> *I've been running this model through ollama and openai's codex. Regular chatting is going great and I'm impressed with the speed/smarts. There seems to be an issue with tool calling (creating/editing files, etc) due to the new Harmony format (the groq hosted version seems to work fine...). I'm assuming this will all get worked out soon. I'm super stoked to have a powerful and free local model I can use in my automations.*

([OpenAI Blog](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-oss/), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/openai-returns-to-open-source-roots-with-new-models-gpt-oss-120b-and-gpt-oss-20b/), [Hugging Face Models](https://huggingface.co/openai))

### Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 4.1 with Major Improvements

**Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.1 on August 5, 2025, delivering significant upgrades to agentic tasks, real-world coding, and reasoning capabilities.**

Key improvements:
- **Agentic performance**: Enhanced multi-step task completion
- **Coding**: 74.5% on SWE-bench Verified (up from 72.5%)
- **Reasoning**: 80.9% on GPQA Diamond (up from 79.6%)
- **Availability**: Claude.ai Pro/Max, Claude Code, API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI
- **Coming soon**: "Substantially larger improvements" in the coming weeks


> *I used 4.1 all day yesterday. It definitely felt a little more reliable at the small things. I didn't notice any major improvements, but I'm sure we'll figure them out as the days go by. Anthropic mentioning "substantially larger improvements" has me chomping at the bit (do people still say that?)*

([Anthropic Blog](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-1), [AWS Bedrock Announcement](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2025/08/anthropic-claude-opus-4-1-amazon-bedrock/))

### Shopify Launches MCP-UI Protocol for AI Commerce

**Shopify announced the MCP-UI protocol on August 5, 2025, enabling seamless shopping experiences within AI agents and chat interfaces.**

Key components:
- **Checkout Kit**: Embed commerce widgets and checkout directly in agents
- **Shopify Catalog**: Low-latency global product search across millions of merchants
- **MCP-UI protocol**: Extension of MCP for exposing secure UI widgets

Technical innovation:
- **Web Components**: Handle variants, subscriptions, bundles automatically
- **No marketplace rules**: Direct merchant relationships, not a marketplace model
- **Enterprise-ready**: Seamless checkout without building complex infrastructure


> *Keep an eye on this space, especially designers. Creating just-in-time MCP Widgets is going to be a big deal.*

([Shopify Engineering Blog](https://shopify.engineering/mcp-ui-breaking-the-text-wall), [Shopify Developer Docs](https://shopify.dev/docs/agents))

### Google DeepMind Unveils Genie 3: Advanced World Simulator

**DeepMind announced Genie 3 on August 5, 2025, the most advanced world simulator ever created, generating interactive 3D environments from text prompts.**

Breakthrough capabilities:
- **Text-to-world**: Generate interactive 3D environments from descriptions
- **Real-time interaction**: Navigate with keyboard, interact with objects
- **Visual fidelity**: 24 fps high-quality rendering at 720p resolution
- **Dynamic prompting**: Modify worlds on the fly
- **World memory**: Visual memory extending up to one minute
- **Research focus**: Training next-generation embodied AI agents

> *What can I say? Wow. Just wow. Like seriously. Pop a VR headset on my face and I'm the God of my own universe. I know I'm exaggrating here, but I did not expect this decade.*

([DeepMind Blog](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/genie-3-a-new-frontier-for-world-models/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/05/deepmind-thinks-genie-3-world-model-presents-stepping-stone-towards-agi/))

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Claude Code Best Practices Guide

**Summary of Ian Nuttall's popular thread on Claude Code best practices.**

Key recommendations:
1. **Extended planning phase**: Use Claude Desktop for tech stack discussions before coding
2. **Documentation research**: Find URLs and repos for latest package versions
3. **Detailed step-by-step plans**: Create meticulous plans but feed to Claude Code incrementally
4. **MVP-first approach**: Get working version before adding features
5. **CLAUDE.md files**: Use `/init` and add subdirectory-specific rules
6. **Session tracking**: Log what worked/didn't for future context
7. **Context management**: Use `/clear` before hitting context limits
8. **Sparse subagent usage**: They burn context quickly
9. **Directory-specific rules**: Add CLAUDE.md to each subdirectory for precise context

> *I don't 100% agree with this guide from a technical standpoint (I cover many of my personal nuances that require demos in the workshop), but I absolutely agree with the philosophy.*

([Claude Sessions Tool](https://github.com/iannuttall/claude-sessions), [Anthropic Best Practices](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/claude-code-best-practices))

### MCP Ecosystem Updates: Enhanced Remote Server Support

**MCP ecosystem updates in early August 2025 brought enhanced support for remote server deployment and shared authentication.**

Major updates:
- **Universal remote support**: OAuth, API key, streamable HTTP, SSE backward compatibility
- **Shared credentials**: Login once, use everywhere
- **Cloudflare MCP**: One-click deployment with authentication support

> *Anything that makes OAuth and MCP work better together is a huge win in my book. Such a pain...*

([Cloudflare MCP Documentation](https://developers.cloudflare.com/agents/guides/remote-mcp-server/), [Cloudflare Blog](https://blog.cloudflare.com/remote-model-context-protocol-servers-mcp/))

### NotebookLM Adds Bulk URL Upload

**Google's NotebookLM quietly launched bulk URL upload functionality in early August 2025, addressing one of the most requested features.**

Enhancement details:
- **Multiple URLs**: Upload many URLs simultaneously
- **Format**: Separate URLs with spaces or newlines
- **Use case**: Research synthesis from multiple sources
- **Integration**: Works with existing Audio and Video Overview features

> *YES! HECK YEAH! Single url uploads was holding NotebookLM back so hard. I haven't had a chance since this released yesterday, but I can't wait to use it.*

([NotebookLM](https://notebooklm.google.com), [XDA Developers](https://www.xda-developers.com/notebooklm-bulk-url-feature/))

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem & Business Updates

### GitHub's "Developers Reinvented" Study Shows AI Transformation

**Thomas Dohmke (GitHub CEO) published findings from GitHub's field study with 22 developers on August 3-4, 2025, revealing how AI is fundamentally changing developer identity and ambitions.**

Key findings:
- **Code generation projection**: AI will write 90% of code within 2-5 years
- **Developer sentiment**: Optimistic and realistic about changes, not worried
- **New core skills**: Agent orchestration, iterative collaboration, critical verification
- **Identity shift**: From code producers to system designers and AI directors
- **Ambition increase**: Developers raising ceiling, not just lowering costs
- **Education implications**: Teaching syntax obsolete, focus on AI collaboration

Adoption phases observed:
1. Dabbling skeptics
2. Cautious experimenters  
3. Strategic collaborators
4. Creative directors of code

> *CEO of company dumping massive amounts of money into AI says AI is important. No surprise. But worth a read.*

([Full Study](https://ashtom.github.io/developers-reinvented), [Free Press Journal](https://www.freepressjournal.in/tech/either-you-embrace-ai-or-get-out-of-this-career-github-ceos-blunt-message-to-developers))

### Jules Agent Now Opens Pull Requests

**Google's Jules coding agent added PR creation capabilities on August 4, 2025, completing the full development workflow from plan to pull request.**

New workflow:
- **End-to-end**: Plan → Code → Commit → Pull Request
- **PR generation**: Automatic summary and description writing
- **Review-ready**: Formatted for human review
- **Integration**: Works with existing Git workflows

> *Gemini, Jules, everything Google just feels like sleeper agents (hah, get it?). Google is doing so many things right across so many products whereas the other providers are just integrating with other products. If Gemini 3.0 is anywhere near GPT-5, I'm not sure the other providers will be able to compete...*

([Jules Changelog](https://jules.google/docs/changelog/), [Google AI Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/jules/))

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Google Sans Code Font Released
Google launched a monospaced font specifically for coding with geometric precision and Renaissance-inspired italics. Available in Android Studio and Gemini. ([Google Fonts](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Google+Sans+Code))

### Manus.ai Wide Research Launched  
Launched July 31, 2025 - deploys 100+ parallel AI agents for large-scale research tasks. Available for Pro plan users ($199/month). ([Manus Blog](https://manus.im/blog/introducing-wide-research), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/youve-heard-of-ai-deep-research-tools-now-manus-is-launching-wide-research-that-spins-up-100-agents-to-scour-the-web-for-you/))

### Horizon Alpha Stealth Model
Mystery high-performance model appearing on OpenRouter achieving 97% accuracy in coding tasks and 100% in ethics benchmarks. Available free during preview. ([OpenRouter](https://openrouter.ai), [Benchable AI](https://benchable.ai/models/openrouter/horizon-alpha))

### CCFlare: Claude Code Proxy with Monitoring
Intelligent CC proxy with load balancing, rate limit management, and analytics for Claude Code usage. ([GitHub](https://github.com/snipeship/ccflare), [CCFlare](https://ccflare.com))

---

## ✨ Workshop Spotlight

### Claude Code Power User Workshop - August 8th

Following our first sold-out workshop, the next Claude Code Power User workshop is scheduled for this **Friday, August 8th at 12pm UTC** (1pm UK / 2pm Europe). 

What we'll cover:
- Advanced subagent orchestration patterns
- Building AI pipelines with multiple Claude instances
- Context engineering for complex projects
- Real-world automation workflows
- Live Q&A and troubleshooting

Almost sold out!

**Register here**: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

---


Read this far? Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend! - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #18: OpenAI's GPT-OSS, Claude 4.1 & Google's Genie 3

Explore AI Dev Essentials #18: Claude Code tips, new lessons on context engineering, and major AI releases from OpenAI, Anthropic, Shopify, and more.

The quality of an AI's output is determined by the quality of its input. "Context Engineering" is the professional practice of giving an AI the exact information it needs to produce reliable, deterministic results. In this course, you will master the tools and techniques required to take absolute control over your AI's context. We'll leverage all the tools in our dev belts with shell pipes, templating engines, custom plugins, enforcing output schemas and much more. Stop guessing and start engineering your AI interactions for professional-grade automation.

Advanced Context Engineering with Claude Code

Master “Context Engineering” to give Claude Code precise input for reliable results. Learn pipes, templates, plugins, schemas & more for pro-grade automation.

# AI Dev Essentials - Issue #17

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **17th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

My first Claude Code Power User Workshop sold out in less than seven days—thanks to everyone for their support! I've already posted the next workshop for Friday, August 8th at 12pm UTC (1pm UK / 2pm Europe), and it's selling out just as quickly, so make sure to grab your spot now.

All my time has been spent preparing for these Claude Code workshops, especially with the release of new features like custom subagents. These have fundamentally changed how I work with Claude Code. I'll be making egghead videos about these topics as well, diving deeper into specialized scenarios and use cases to share with everyone.

Now, onto the news!

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Claude Code Custom Sub-agents Launch

**Anthropic released custom sub-agents for Claude Code on July 24, 2025, enabling developers to create specialized AI teams that handle specific tasks autonomously.**

Key capabilities:
- **Custom agent creation**: Design agents for code review, architecture, testing, and more
- **Automatic invocation**: Claude Code intelligently calls relevant agents based on context
- **Template ecosystem**: Community sharing agents via GitHub repositories
- **Project-level customization**: Store agents in `.claude/agents/` or globally in `~/.claude/agents/`
- **Refresh requirement**: Must refresh Claude Code after creating new agents

Popular agent types emerging:
- **Code refactorer**: Automated refactoring with best practices
- **Security auditor**: Vulnerability scanning and security recommendations
- **Frontend designer**: UI/UX improvements and component design
- **PRD writer**: Product requirement documentation from ideas

([Anthropic Documentation](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/sub-agents), [Anthropic Blog](https://www.anthropic.com/news/how-anthropic-teams-use-claude-code))

> *Before sub-agents, I was building aliases with Claude Code and chaining them together through AI pipelines. While that's still a valuable technique, sub-agents have vastly simplified setting up these pipelines and handing tasks off to specialized child agents. It's definitely one of my new favorite features. I especially love how easy it is to create an agent using their custom slash commands—just dictate a few sentences about what you want it to do, and it generates the agent itself. Really looking forward to diving deeper into this.*

### Anthropic Announces Weekly Rate Limits for Claude Pro/Max

**Anthropic announced on July 28, 2025, that new weekly rate limits will be implemented starting August 28, 2025, affecting less than 5% of Claude Pro and Max subscribers based on current usage patterns.**

Details:
- **Context**: Claude Code has seen "unprecedented demand," especially on Max plans
- **Edge cases**: One user consumed "tens of thousands" in model usage on a $200 plan
- **Account sharing**: Violations of usage policies through account reselling detected
- **Solution**: Max plan users can purchase additional usage at standard API rates
- **Impact**: Estimated to affect heavy users running Claude Code 24/7

([TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/anthropic-unveils-new-rate-limits-to-curb-claude-code-power-users/), [Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-is-rate-limiting-claude-code-blaming-some-users-for-never-turning-it-off-211134730.html))

> *I fully understand Anthropic's position here. I spent a few days running Claude Code 24/7 using background tasks with multiple subagents, and based on some calculations, I was racking up what would have been costs in the many thousands of dollars. We've seen Cursor do this in the past where they had an unlimited plan but had to back off. It seems to be a pattern: lure in customers with generous offerings, then change the policies. The main lesson is don't subscribe to yearly plans, because these companies will change the pricing underneath you. That said, I still think Anthropic's $200 a month is a screaming deal. If I ever run out of credits for the week, I'll just buy a second account. It achieves way more for $200 than I could ever achieve on my own. I'm constantly using it, prompting it, tweaking things with it. I can't imagine development without it. In fact, I'm using it right now by dictating and asking it to polish this commentary (although I still go back and hand-edit for that hand-crafted, home-grown feel).*

### ChatGPT Study Mode Rolls Out to All Users

**OpenAI's Study Mode is now available to all free, Plus, Pro, and Teams users as of July 29, 2025, expanding educational AI capabilities across the platform.**

Features:
- **Universal access**: Available across all ChatGPT tiers
- **Educational focus**: Designed to make learning more accessible and intentional
- **Interactive learning**: Adaptive questioning and explanations
- **Subject coverage**: Works across all academic disciplines

([OpenAI Official](https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-study-mode/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/openai-launches-study-mode-in-chatgpt/))

> *I tried ChatGPT Study Mode briefly last night and didn't see much value compared to the prompts I use to generate quizzes on topics. But I definitely need to spend more time giving it a fair shake before drawing any real conclusions. It's fairly trivial to ask any AI agent to create quizzes and materials. Maybe this is just a streamlined UI for less advanced users. I know many of us could do this ourselves.*

### Google Introduces NotebookLM Video Overviews

**Google launched Video Overviews in NotebookLM on July 29, 2025, creating visual summaries with slides, diagrams, and AI narration from uploaded sources.**

Technical details:
- **Format**: Short, engaging slide presentations
- **Content**: Automatically extracts images, diagrams, quotes, and data
- **Narration**: AI host provides voice-over explanations
- **Alternative to**: Audio Overviews for visual learners
- **Use cases**: Research synthesis, presentation creation, study materials

([Google Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-labs/notebooklm-video-overviews-studio-upgrades/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/googles-notebooklm-rolls-out-video-overviews/))

> *I've generated a few of these so far and absolutely love them. The narrator's voice is extremely pleasant. It's probably the best AI voiceover I've ever heard. I love the slides, the way it highlights text, pretty much everything about it. Definitely looking forward to generating more of these.*

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling Updates

### Cursor 1.3: Enhanced Agent Capabilities

**Cursor 1.3 is rolling out with significant improvements to agent interaction and development workflow transparency.**

Major updates:
- **Shared terminal**: Agents can now interact with your terminal session
- **Context usage visibility**: See exactly what context is being used in Chat
- **Faster edits**: Performance improvements across the board
- **Git integration**: Checkpoints now use git under the hood
- **Notebook support**: Checkpoints work with Jupyter notebooks
- **Security**: Removed denylist for auto-run, improved security model
- **UI improvements**: Right-click directories to send to chat

([Cursor Changelog](https://cursor.com/en/changelog), [AlternativeTo](https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/7/cursor-1-3-adds-agent-terminal-sharing-faster-edits-and-enterprise-controls/))

> *Backgrounding tasks in the terminal has been one of the biggest pain points in Cursor agents, so I'm definitely excited to see this feature. Honestly, I haven't had a chance to fully test it out yet, but I'm looking forward to putting it through the ringer.*

### Microsoft Edge Copilot Mode: Multi-Tab RAG

**Satya Nadella unveiled Copilot Mode in Edge on July 28, 2025, introducing multi-tab RAG capabilities that analyze all open browser tabs simultaneously.**

Key features:
- **Multi-tab analysis**: RAG across all open tabs in real-time
- **Research synthesis**: Combine information from multiple sources
- **Browser-native AI**: First step in "reinventing the browser for the AI age"
- **Academic use case**: Demonstrated analyzing Nature journal papers
- **Contextual understanding**: Maintains context across different websites

([Microsoft Edge Blog](https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2025/07/28/introducing-copilot-mode-in-edge-a-new-way-to-browse-the-web/), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/microsoft-edge-is-now-an-ai-browser-with-launch-of-copilot-mode/))

> *It's fascinating watching every browser add AI capabilities. I've used Chrome forever, so I don't see any AI feature pulling me away after I've customized all my extensions. I've tried the Dia browser, but I spend so much more time using AI in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude's actual home pages than opening browser tabs and asking questions. Maybe I just need to adjust my mindset to optimize to chatting with multiple tabs? But my multiple tabs are usually multiple AI sessions that have done searches inline, so 🤷‍♂️*

### OpenTUI: Terminal UI Library for TypeScript

**SST is sponsoring the development of OpenTUI, a TypeScript library for building terminal UIs, with impressive real-time rendering capabilities.**

Technical specifications:
- **TypeScript-first**: Native TypeScript support for terminal UIs
- **Performance**: Real-time rendering without speed-up in demos
- **Based on**: kmdrfx's previous work
- **Repository**: [github.com/sst/opentui](https://github.com/sst/opentui)
- **Use cases**: CLI tools, development dashboards, interactive terminals

([GitHub Repository](https://github.com/sst/opentui), [SST Blog](https://sst.dev/blog/announcing-opentui))

> *The OpenCode terminal team is definitely pushing terminals way beyond what I thought they were capable of. It does seem a bit ironic to build UIs inside terminals when that's not their purpose at all. I don't see the value when there are so many IDEs with built-in terminals where you could build way more advanced UIs that interact with the terminals and let them do what they're best at. But who knows? I could be surprised. I know this is definitely going to appeal to a certain subset of developers.*

---

## 💼 AI Business & Ecosystem

### Industry Shift: From Documentation to Rapid Prototyping

**Tech companies are experiencing a fundamental cultural shift from documentation-heavy processes to rapid prototyping, enabled by AI coding assistants.**

Cultural transformation across the industry:
- **Old model**: Extensive PRDs and documentation before development
- **New model**: "Vibe-code" prototypes created in hours instead of days
- **Role evolution**: Product and engineering roles increasingly overlapping
- **Time equation**: AI-assisted prototyping now faster than writing specifications
- **Impact**: Ideas tested in code before extensive planning phases

([Industry Analysis](https://www.computerworld.com/article/4029384/ai-coding-tools-reshape-software-development-culture.html))

> *I like seeing these efforts where project managers are being taught to think in AI workflows. We all need to adjust to what our new tools are capable of. The longer we fight against it and stick to traditional ways, the faster we'll fall behind when it comes time to really leverage these tools' full power. Even if we fail sometimes using these tools, it's better to be prepared for when they become more reliable. If there's one thing we've noticed, it's that AI tools have grown increasingly reliable over the past year. Think about how you use AI today compared to July 2024.*

### Cline's Critique of AI Subscription Economics

**Cline published a detailed analysis explaining why subscription models for AI inference are economically unsustainable.**

Key arguments:
- **Cost mismatch**: $200/month power users can burn $500/day in AI costs
- **Provider losses**: Up to $14,800/month per heavy user
- **Commodity nature**: AI inference is like gas or electricity
- **Hidden limits**: Providers forced to add undisclosed usage caps
- **Solution**: Bring-your-own-key model with transparent usage
- **Business model**: Cline monetizes through enterprise features, not inference markup

([Cline Blog](https://cline.bot/blog/the-economic-realities-of-commodity-subscription-models), [VentureBeat Analysis](https://venturebeat.com/ai/why-ai-subscription-models-are-economically-unsustainable/))

> *I shared this because I thought it was interesting commentary on pricing models, tokens, and tools. I don't think anyone really has insight into what the future holds regarding price versus model capabilities. How much work does $10 get you? Right now, we're all caught up in pricing model changes being pulled out from under us. But it's quite possible that by this time next year, everything will be so cheap and fast that it won't matter.*

---

## 🤖 Model & Research Updates

### Z.ai Launches GLM-4.5 and GLM-4.5 Air

**Z.ai released GLM-4.5 (355B total/32B active) and GLM-4.5-Air (106B total/12B active) on July 28, 2025, featuring frontier reasoning, coding, and agentic capabilities.**

Technical specifications:
- **GLM-4.5**: 355B parameters total, 32B active, $0.6/$2.2 per 1M tokens
- **GLM-4.5-Air**: 106B parameters total, 12B active, $0.2/$1.1 per 1M tokens
- **Training**: Hybrid post-training with domain-specific experts
- **Features**: Native coding agent inspired by Claude Code
- **Benchmarks**: Pareto frontier performance at respective scales
- **Availability**: Weights on Hugging Face, APIs via Z.ai and OpenRouter

Notable capabilities:
- **Website generation**: Create full-stack sites from prompts
- **Slides/Poster agent**: Model-native presentation creation
- **Interactive artifacts**: Games, physics simulations in HTML/SVG/Python

([Z.ai Blog](https://z.ai/blog/glm-4.5), [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/zai-org/GLM-4.5), [PR Newswire](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zai-releases-glm-4-5--setting-new-standards-for-ai-performance-and-accessibility-while-improving-affordability-302514803.html), [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/ai/chinese-startup-z-ai-launches-powerful-open-source-glm-4-5-model-family-with-powerpoint-creation/))

> *I've seen many benchmarks, but not many people actually using. I'll dig in next week, but I've been fooled by benchmarks before so I'm tempering my excitement.*

### Gemini 2.5 MCP Integration: 2,700+ APIs via Pipedream

**Google showcased Gemini 2.5's MCP integration connecting to 2,700+ APIs and 10K tools through Pipedream in under 100 lines of code.**

Implementation details:
- **Code simplicity**: Complete agent in &lt;100 lines
- **API access**: 2,700+ APIs through Pipedream
- **Tool count**: 10,000+ available tools
- **Demo**: Google Calendar and Gmail integration
- **Repository**: [GitHub example](https://github.com/philschmid/gemini-samples/blob/main/scripts/gemini-mcp-pipedream.py)

([Google DeepMind Blog](https://blog.google/technology/google-deepmind/google-gemini-updates-io-2025/), [Pipedream Platform](https://pipedream.com/), [GitHub Example](https://github.com/philschmid/gemini-samples))

> *It's fascinating to see Gemini excel in some areas, especially with larger context windows, where other agents fail. They're tackling problems many people don't have yet—and might never have. I'm definitely never going to build a tool that connects to 2,700 APIs, but I'm glad someone's pushing the boundaries that way.*

---

## 🎨 Creative AI Breakthroughs

### Photoshop Beta: Harmonize Feature Revolution

**Adobe's Photoshop beta introduced Harmonize on July 29, 2025, fundamentally changing how compositing works in professional image editing.**

([Adobe Blog](https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2025/07/29/powerful-new-photoshop-innovations-creators-creative-pros), [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/adobe-adds-new-ai-powered-image-editing-features-to-photoshop/))

> *I feel like this is the holy grail for photo editing. I'm decent with the lasso tool and yanking a picture of somebody and plopping it onto a background. But I've never been great at matching lighting or getting the colors just right. This is exciting work. For time-saving design work, especially marketing campaigns, this is going to save people an unfathomable amount of time.*

### Veo 3's Emergent Visual Instruction Capability

**Google discovered an emergent capability in Veo 3 where the model can read and execute visual instructions drawn on the first frame of a video.**

How it works:
- **Input method**: Draw or annotate instructions on the starting frame
- **Execution**: Model interprets and executes instructions sequentially
- **Prompt**: "Delete instructions and execute in order"
- **Applications**: Complex spatial relationships, multi-step animations
- **Discovery**: Found by Google Labs team during testing

([Google Flow Blog](https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-flow-veo-ai-filmmaking-tool/), [DeepNewz AI](https://deepnewz.com/ai-modeling/googles-veo-3-learns-to-follow-hand-drawn-video-instructions-89633fd8))

> *I love this story so much. The fact that they didn't design for this, but people discovered a way to use it, is something we'll see more and more of as these models improve. And it's not just a minor discovery—it's an awesome way of interacting with video. Classic storyboarding with arrows and text boxes is just chef's kiss perfection. It makes me wish I was doing more AI video work.*

---

## ⚡ Quick Updates

- **Ian Nuttall's 7 custom Claude Code agents**: code-refactorer, prd-writer, project-task-planner, vibe-coding-coach, security-auditor, frontend-designer, content-writer ([GitHub](https://github.com/iannuttall/claude-agents), [Thread](https://x.com/iannuttall/status/1948702664348631446))
- **Gemini CLI comparison vs Claude Code**: 50+ task comparison shows tool choice depends on specific use case - Claude Code excels at multi-file edits, Gemini at single-file refactoring ([Analysis](https://x.com/DynamicWebPaige/status/1949963776918171788))
- **Alex Albert collecting non-coding Claude Code uses**: Community sharing creative applications beyond development ([Thread](https://x.com/alexalbert__/status/1948765443776544885))
- **Cursor tips thread**: Eric Zakariasson gathering lesser-known Cursor features from community ([Discussion](https://x.com/ericzakariasson/status/1948774763318706684))
- **Imagen 4 Ultra**: Logan Kilpatrick confirms "best text to image model in the world" available in Gemini API ([Announcement](https://x.com/OfficialLoganK/status/1948815146115314001))
- **swyx on ambient agents**: Predicts 1-2hr autonomy barrier will be broken by EOY 2025, changing usage patterns ([Thread](https://x.com/swyx/status/1948871669646590165))

---

## ✨ Live Workshop: Transform into a Claude Code Power User  ✨

Full details: [https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code](https://egghead.io/workshop/claude-code)

Learn the latest power user workflows to maximize your productivity. Join me live as I walk through building CLI chains, video prompting, triggering workflows on hooks, and much more:

* **When:** Friday, August 8th at 12pm UTC (1pm UK / 2pm Europe)  
* **Where:** Zoom  
* **Investment:** $350

➡️ [**Register Now**](https://buy.stripe.com/bJe3cog5f5iq1oBdNU9fW0c)

_Selling out quickly. Secure your spot today!_  

---

Thanks for reading! What custom agents are you building? I'd love to hear about your experiments.

Read this far? [Share "AI Dev Essentials" with a friend!](https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials) - https://egghead.io/newsletters/ai-dev-essentials

- John Lindquist

[egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #17: Claude Sub-Agents, Weekly Limits, and Copilot Multi-Tab RAG

I tweak my AI Dev Tools almost weekly. I'll keep this list up-to-date with everything I currently recommend:

## 1. Super Whisper 2 with Parakeet Model 🎤

**Purpose:** Instant, accurate voice-to-text for rapid ideation and documentation

I use Super Whisper constantly throughout my day for:
- Dictating implementation plans directly to Cursor/Claude Code
- Drafting emails and documentation
- Capturing fleeting thoughts before they disappear

The new Parakeet model provides exceptional accuracy and speed. It's become an essential part of my workflow for turning thoughts into text without breaking flow.

**Price:** $9/month  
**Get it:** [Super Whisper on Gumroad](https://superwhisper.com)

## 2. Basic Memory 🧠

**Purpose:** Open-source markdown + database system for persistent AI context

Basic Memory creates a searchable knowledge base that:
- Works seamlessly with Cursor, Claude, and any MCP-compatible tool
- Stores context in version-controllable, Git-friendly markdown
- Maintains human-readable documentation of your project history

This tool solves the context window problem by giving AI assistants access to your project's accumulated knowledge.

**Price:** Free (open source)  
**Get it:** [Basic Memory on GitHub](https://github.com/basicmachines-co/basic-memory)  

## 3. Cursor 🖱️

**Purpose:** Primary AI-powered code editor

Cursor has become my go-to editor because of:
- Lightning-fast tab completion that actually understands context
- Powerful agent/background agent/bug bot experiences
- Continuous improvements and feature releases
- Excellent integration with various AI models

The team ships improvements constantly, making it feel like the editor gets smarter every week.

**Price:** $20/month (Pro plan)  
**Get it:** [cursor.com](https://cursor.com)  
**Documentation:** [docs.cursor.com](https://docs.cursor.com)

## 4. Claude Code 🤖

**Purpose:** Best-in-class agentic coding assistant

Claude Code stands out as the current leader in autonomous coding:
- Superior tool-calling capabilities compared to alternatives
- Flat pricing for unlimited usage (crucial for heavy users)
- Custom script integration through the SDK (game-changer!)
- Exceptional understanding of complex codebases

The ability to integrate custom scripts makes this incredibly powerful for personalized workflows.

**Price:** $200/month (Max 20x Pro plan)  
**Get it:** [claude.ai/download](https://claude.ai/download)  
**GitHub:** [anthropics/claude-code](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code)

## 5. Warp Terminal 🚀

**Purpose:** AI-enhanced terminal for faster command-line workflows

Warp transforms the terminal experience with:
- Incredible speed - everything feels instantaneous
- Smart command auto-completion
- Natural language to complex command generation
- Intelligent history search
- AI-powered error explanations

It's the terminal reimagined for the AI era.

**Price:** Free (paid plans available for AI Agents)  
**Get it:** [warp.dev](https://www.warp.dev)  
**Documentation:** [docs.warp.dev](https://docs.warp.dev)

## 6. Pieces App 📚

**Purpose:** Automatic work tracking and searchable local knowledge base

Pieces creates a personal AI assistant that:
- Captures browser activity, code snippets, and chat conversations automatically
- Makes everything queryable through MCP in Cursor/Claude Code/Scripts
- Generates "What I'm working on" summaries to maintain context across projects
- Builds a searchable archive of your development history

This tool ensures nothing gets lost in the shuffle of multiple projects.

**Price:** $20/month (Pro plan, generous free tier available)  
**Get it:** [pieces.app](https://pieces.app)  
**MCP Integration:** [pieces.app/features/mcp](https://pieces.app/features/mcp)

## 7. Script Kit 📜

**Purpose:** Build and trigger AI scripts through various automation methods

Script Kit (disclosure: I created this) enables powerful automation through:
- Keyboard shortcuts for instant script execution
- Cron scheduling for automated tasks
- System event triggers
- Integration with AI models for intelligent automation

It's the glue that connects your tools and workflows together.

**Price:** Free & Open Source  
**Get it:** [scriptkit.com](https://scriptkit.com)  
**GitHub:** [johnlindquist/kit](https://github.com/johnlindquist/kit)  
**Documentation:** [Script Kit Docs](https://johnlindquist.github.io/kit-docs/)

## 8. Bee AI Wristband ⌚

**Purpose:** Ambient conversation capture and automatic note-taking

The Bee wristband:
- Records conversations throughout the day unobtrusively
- Takes automatic notes without manual intervention
- Syncs with other tools in your stack
- Captures context you'd otherwise forget

It's particularly helpful for capturing insights from meetings, conversations, and spontaneous ideas.

**Price:** $50  
**Get it:** [bee.computer](https://www.bee.computer/bee-pioneer)

## 9. Fusion ☢️

**Purpose:** Load any project into an AI designer

Fusion stands out because it:
- Works with any framework or technology stack (not limited to Next.js)
- Provides intelligent design suggestions
- Continuously improves with regular updates

This tool bridges the gap between code and design in AI development.

**Note:** Specific product URL pending verification

## 10. Honorable Mentions

### AI Studio/Gemini 🎬
**Purpose:** Video processing and rapid design iteration

Google's AI Studio with Gemini provides:
- Best-in-class video processing capabilities
- Quick design iteration workflows
- Multimodal understanding

**Price:** $20/month  
**Get it:** [aistudio.google.com](https://aistudio.google.com)

### ChatGPT o3 Pro 🧠
**Purpose:** Complex reasoning and deep research

The o3 Pro tier offers:
- Advanced reasoning for complex questions
- Comprehensive planning capabilities
- Deep research mode for thorough analysis

**Price:** $200/month for o3 Pro access  
**Get it:** [OpenAI ChatGPT Pricing](https://openai.com/chatgpt/pricing/)


---

## Total Monthly Cost

Here's the breakdown of my complete stack:
- Super Whisper 2: $9/month
- Basic Memory: Free
- Cursor: $20/month
- Claude Code: $200/month
- Warp Terminal: Free
- Pieces App: $20/month
- Script Kit: Free
- Bee AI Wristband: $50 (one-time)
- AI Studio/Gemini: $20/month
- ChatGPT o3 Pro: $200/month

**Total:** ~$469/month (plus $50 one-time for Bee)

While this might seem like a significant investment, the productivity gains far outweigh the costs. Each tool eliminates friction in different parts of the development process, and together they create a workflow that feels almost magical.

The key is choosing tools that complement each other and create a cohesive ecosystem rather than a collection of disconnected utilities.

AI Dev Stack

Developer knowledge often lives in separate silos from the codebase. This course demonstrates how to create a unified workflow where your notes, ideas, and conversations directly feed into your development process. We will build a local, AI-queriable knowledge base using Markdown and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). You will learn to turn unstructured daily notes into structured data, like bug reports and feature requests, using custom AI prompts. We will then automate this entire pipeline, from capturing an idea to generating the corresponding project file, creating an efficient and repeatable system.

In this course, you will learn to:
* Centralize project knowledge in a local, AI-queriable Markdown system.
* Create a repeatable process for exporting and organizing past AI conversations.
* Connect unstructured daily notes to structured project tasks using custom prompts.
* Automate the creation of issues, features, and bug reports from your notes.
* Develop headless scripts that integrate these knowledge workflows into your terminal.
* Design and implement custom agents to make complex workflows easy to reuse.

Create an AI-Automated MCP-Driven Markdown Knowledge Base

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **15th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**. A new Open Source model named "Kimi K2" is taking the AI world by storm, and I'm HERE FOR IT! I hooked Kimi K2 up to Groq inside of Cline and my jaw hit the floor when I saw the sheer speed and intelligence absolutely demolishing tasks. I honestly feel like it has 4x'ed my productivity. My biggest concern is going to be hitting limits (both on tokens and on cost), but just knowing that this is what the near future of development looks like is so frikin' exciting.

After a lot of thought and discussions with trusted friends here's a quick update from previous announcements:

### All Upcoming AI Courses, Tips, and Tricks will be published on egghead.io 😎

After announcing "CursorPro.ai" 2 weeks ago, I received a truckload of questions around "What about Claude Code?", "Is it only Cursor?", "When will it be finished?", format, pricing, etc.

To keep it simple, I will publish all upcoming AI courses as paid courses on egghead.io. So all you have to do is subscribe (or Re-subscribe 😘) to egghead.io and you'll receive all the latest AI Dev Essential lessons the moment they're released. This will immensely streamline the publishing process so you can get the latest tutorials as soon as possible. We'll be increasing the subscription price in the near future, so consider locking-in at the current price as the new "early bird" pricing:

✅ Subscribe here: [https://egghead.io/pricing](https://egghead.io/pricing)

And yes, I'll focus much more on Claude Code, Context Engineering, scripting AI tools, etc, but still allow myself breathing room to cover some of the Cursor best practices and workflows.

Tomorrow, I'l publish my first batch of lessons caled "Create a Markdown-Based Knowledge Base with MCPs" and I can show how to hook it into both Claude Code and Cursor without having to dance around the "CursorPro.ai" naming.

---

## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Kimi K2: The Open-Source Giant That Changes Everything

Moonshot AI just dropped Kimi K2, and it's not just another model release - it's a paradigm shift. This 1 trillion parameter MoE model with 32B active parameters is now the open-source champion, outperforming Claude 4 and Gemini 2.5 on key benchmarks while being completely open and accessible.

The numbers are staggering:
- **Architecture**: 1 trillion total parameters with 32B active parameters per token
- **Performance**: LiveCodeBench v6 score of 53.7 (vs Claude Opus 4 at 47.4)
- **Cost**: $0.15/M input tokens, $2.50/M output tokens (100x cheaper than Claude Opus 4)
- **Context**: 128K-token context window with stable performance
- **Training**: Pre-trained on 15.5T tokens with zero instability
- **License**: Modified MIT License - truly open source

([Official GitHub Repository](https://github.com/MoonshotAI/Kimi-K2), [MarkTechPost Coverage](https://www.marktechpost.com/2025/07/11/moonshot-ai-releases-kimi-k2-a-trillion-parameter-moe-model-focused-on-long-context-code-reasoning-and-agentic-behavior/), [Hugging Face Weights](https://huggingface.co/moonshotai))

> I'm so extremely excited for this as I already said above.. It'll be fascinating to watch what sort of impact this has on the community at large.

### Groq + Kimi K2: The Speed Revolution

Groq integrated Kimi K2 onto their LPU infrastructure, achieving 185 tokens per second - significantly faster than the 16.2 tokens/second average across all providers. While not the claimed 1,000 tokens/second, it's still the fastest Kimi K2 inference available.

Groq's official announcement confirms "*YOLO Launch* Kimi K2 is now in preview on GroqCloud at 185 tokens/sec. Build fast." For context, Groq has achieved up to 800+ tokens/second with other models like Llama 3, showing the potential for future optimizations.

([Groq Official Announcement](https://x.com/GroqInc/status/1944944178145976337), [Groq Documentation](https://console.groq.com/docs/model/moonshotai/kimi-k2-instruct), [Community Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44567897))

> There's just something special about watching code appear faster than you can read it. One of my biggest pain points with using any sort of AI tooling Is falling out of the zone where I have to keep on context switching between all the various tasks I'm working on because things are happening in the background. If we can finally get to the point where The models can generate quality code fast enough to keep it in the foreground so that I can stay in the zone and focused on the task, then that'll completely change the way I think about. Using all of the tools and the way I approach all of my projects, it's really a drastic shift. From the way I've thought about using all these tools in the past.

### Cognition Acquires Windsurf: The Strategic Masterstroke

Cognition (makers of Devin AI) officially acquired Windsurf on Monday, July 14, 2025, following a whirlwind weekend deal. The acquisition includes Windsurf's IP, trademark, brand, and all remaining employees after Google hired key executives in a $2.4B reverse-acquihire.

Key deal details:
- **Business acquired**: $82M ARR with 350+ enterprise customers
- **Team structure**: 100% of employees participate financially with all vesting cliffs waived
- **Timeline**: First call Friday evening, agreement signed Monday morning
- **Context**: Came after OpenAI's failed $3B acquisition offer expired

([Cognition Official Blog](https://cognition.ai/blog/windsurf), [TechCrunch Coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/cognition-maker-of-the-ai-coding-agent-devin-acquires-windsurf/), [VentureBeat Analysis](https://venturebeat.com/programming-development/remaining-windsurf-team-and-tech-acquired-by-cognition-makers-of-devin-were-friends-with-anthropic-again/))

> The way this deal was structured shows real respect for the team that built Windsurf. Instead of the usual "acqui-hire and gut the product" approach, they're treating the team as equals. This is how you build long-term value in the AI space. Most of the people I've talked to see this as a perfect pairing between two companies. So I'm really happy from a personal level that the people involved in this on the The windsurf side are being respected and will get to work what they want to work on.

### OpenRouter's Kimi K2 Pricing Discounts

OpenRouter is offering Kimi K2 through their platform at a discounts through a paid tier and a free tier, though the actual pricing differs from initial claims. Current verified pricing shows competitive but not revolutionary rates.

Actual pricing on OpenRouter:
- **Paid tier**: $0.14/M input tokens, $2.49/M output tokens (via Targon)
- **Free tier**: $0 for both input/output (via Chutes, Parasail) with rate limits
- **Context**: Up to 65,536 tokens on free tier

Note: While marketed as aggressive pricing, these rates are close to Moonshot's direct pricing of $0.15/$2.50.

([OpenRouter Kimi K2 Page](https://openrouter.ai/moonshotai/kimi-k2), [Free Endpoint](https://openrouter.ai/moonshotai/kimi-k2:free))

> I think everyone's going to race to subsidize Kimi to get them hooked into their ecosystem. This is a fairly standard strategy once a new model comes out. Get them locked in and then raise the prices later. But we'll see what happens. Open router has been pretty awesome in the past.

---

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling & Ecosystem Updates

### Gemini Embeddings Go General Availability

Google's Gemini Embedding model (gemini-embedding-001) became generally available in July 2025 following an experimental phase since March. The model leads the MTEB multilingual leaderboard with a score of 68.32, a margin of +5.81 over competing models.

Key specifications:
- **100+ languages supported** with 2048 max input tokens
- **Matryoshka Representation Learning** - scalable from 3072 down to 768 dimensions
- **Pricing**: $0.15 per million input tokens (50% less for batch mode)
- **MTEB score**: 68.32 on multilingual benchmark
- **Free tier available** via Google AI Studio

([Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/en/gemini-embedding-available-gemini-api/), [Google AI Documentation](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/embeddings), [TechCrunch Coverage](https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/07/google-debuts-a-new-gemini-based-text-embedding-model/))

> The pricing is aggressive - $0.15 per million tokens makes it very competitive. I'm already seeing developers switching from OpenAI's embeddings for cost-sensitive applications.

### Deepgram Saga: Voice Control for Your Entire Stack

Deepgram launched Saga on July 8, 2025 - marketed as "The Voice OS for Developers." Important clarification: This is NOT an open-source model but a commercial voice interface built on Deepgram's proprietary APIs.

Core capabilities:
- **Voice interface** for development workflows via MCP
- **Tool integration** with Cursor, Windsurf, Linear, Asana, Jira, Slack
- **Commercial product** using Deepgram's speech-to-text and text-to-speech APIs
- **Pricing**: Pay-as-you-go based on WebSocket connection time
- **$200 free credit** for new users

([Deepgram Official Announcement](https://deepgram.com/learn/announcing-deepgram-saga-voice-os), [SiliconANGLE Coverage](https://siliconangle.com/2025/07/08/deepgram-launches-saga-ai-powered-voice-interface-developers/), [Product Page](https://deepgram.com/product/saga))

> I tested this out for a while and I'm excited about their ambitious goals, but it does still feel like alpha software and it's nowhere near polished enough to replace SuperWhisper for me. I love the idea of always live typing your raw dictation while suggesting potential rewrites in panels so that you can dictate while watching rewrites come in, and either do your raw text or a polished version. And I also love the idea of hooking into MCPs so that you're essentially building your own voice assistants. Unfortunately, everything was so buggy for me, I just kind of gave up on it for a while. And we'll see how it evolves, and I'll keep on checking in on it.

### Claude Code vs Kimi K2: The Cost Showdown

A head-to-head comparison between Claude 4 and Kimi K2 on identical tasks, and the results are eye-opening:

- **Claude 4**: 2 rounds, $0.88 spent
- **Kimi K2**: One-shot completion, $0.05 spent
- **Cost difference**: ~13x cheaper

For reference, current pricing comparison:
- **Kimi K2**: $0.15/M input, $2.50/M output tokens
- **Claude Opus 4**: $15/M input, $75/M output tokens (100x/30x more expensive)
- **GPT-4.1**: $2/M input, $8/M output tokens (13x/3x more expensive)

([Thread](https://x.com/igor9silva/status/1943701494911418700), [Moonshot AI Pricing](https://platform.moonshot.cn/pricing))

> I know Kimi is still super new, and I'll be watching all the benchmarks and the cost comparisons. And this one stuck out to me even if it's just a small sample size. But still if if this trend holds, I'm definitely looking forward to saving money. 😇

### Gemini CLI Public Roadmap: Transparency in Action

**The Gemini CLI team made their development roadmap public on July 15, 2025, revealing their Q3 2025 priorities. With 60,000 stars and 1,000 open issues, the community engagement has been remarkable.**

Key workstreams for Q3 2025:
- **Community and Automation**: Repository workflow automation and OpenTelemetry observability support
- **Engineering Excellence**: Enhanced testing frameworks and release processes
- **Extensibility**: Internal and external plugin systems
- **Model Quality**: 7 initiatives focused on improving model performance (25% complete)
- **Performance Optimization**: Speed improvements across the CLI

([Public Roadmap](https://github.com/orgs/google-gemini/projects/11) [Mark McD Announcement](https://x.com/m4rkmc/status/1945158886270378400))

> This level of transparency is refreshing. Making roadmaps public forces accountability and lets the community see where priorities really lie. With 1,000 open issues, they're clearly listening to feedback and iterating quickly.

---

## 💼 AI Ecosystem & Business Moves

### AI Companies Score Major Defense Contracts

**Anthropic and xAI both secured $200M ceiling contracts with the Pentagon on July 14, 2025, through the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO). These two-year prototype agreements mark a significant shift in government AI adoption.**

Contract details:
- **Amount**: Up to $200M over two years per company
- **Type**: Prototype other transaction agreements
- **Anthropic**: Claude Gov models for classified networks, risk-forecasting research (follows their June policy change allowing intelligence applications)
- **xAI**: Launched "Grok for Government" offering Grok 4, Deep Search models, and custom models for classified environments
- **Applications**: Healthcare, fundamental science, national defense, and intelligence

([Bloomberg Report](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-14/anthropic-google-openai-xai-win-defense-contracts), [DefenseScoop Coverage](https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/14/pentagon-anthropic-google-openai-xai-contracts/), [Washington Post Analysis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/07/14/ai-defense-contracts-anthropic-google-openai/), [xAI Official Announcement](https://x.ai/news/government))

> I honestly don't know what to say here. In fact, I'm not sure my opinion even matters... I think we've all seen enough sci-fi movies to know how this all plays out.

## ⚡ Quick Updates

- **OpenAI delays open-weight model**: Sam Altman announced delays for safety testing, no timeline given ([Tweet](https://x.com/sama/status/1943837550369812814))
- **Steve's Guide to Claude Code**: Builder.io's Steve published an awesome guide to Claude Code ([Thread](https://x.com/Steve8708/status/1943681901874626745))
- **zshy bundler-free TypeScript**: colinhacks (of "Zod" fame) released zshy for bundler-free TypeScript library builds ([Launch](https://x.com/colinhacks/status/1943224100673171930))
- **Superwhisper v2.0**: New design, Parakeet voice model (I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THIS MODEL, IT'S SO FAST!) ([Update](https://x.com/superwhisperapp/status/1943749347805442066))
- **n8n MCP integration**: Prajwal Tomar's guide to n8n MCP for workflow automation ([Thread](https://x.com/PrajwalTomar_/status/1943318952047972791))

---

## 🚨 REGISTER NOW FOR FRIDAY'S WORKSHOP 🚨

## ✨ Live Workshop: Unlock Cursor's Full Potential ✨

Full details: [https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)

Learn the latest power user workflows to maximize your productivity. Join me live as I walk through the current best practices in AI Dev landscape.

* **When:** Friday, July 18, 2025  
  - 5:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)  
  - 🇬🇧 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (UTC+1)  
  - 🇪🇺 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM (UTC+2)  
* **Where:** Zoom  
* **Investment:** $249.00

➡️ [**Register Now**](https://buy.stripe.com/6oU14g2ep9yGd7j5ho9fW0a)

_Limited spots available. Secure yours today!_  

---

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reply directly to this email.

Read this far?  [Share AI Dev Essentials with a coworker or friend!](https://email.egghead.io/e/c/eyJlbWFpbF9pZCI6ImRnU0otd1VEQUpjdWxpNEJsX1dFWU5QNlZRSVdscFU5WTI5ViIsImhyZWYiOiJodHRwczovL2VnZ2hlYWQuaW8vbmV3c2xldHRlcnMvYWktZGV2LWVzc2VudGlhbHM_Y2lvX2lkPWNvX2I2ZmRwYmdrdjAwbWNcdTAwMjZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249QUkrRGV2K0Vzc2VudGlhbHMrJTIzMTRcdTAwMjZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1BSStEZXYrRXNzZW50aWFscyslMjMxNFx1MDAyNnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWxfYWN0aW9uXHUwMDI2dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1jdXN0b21lci5pbyIsImludGVybmFsIjoiODlmYjA1MDA5NjJlOTcyZSIsImxpbmtfaWQiOjEyNzExfQ/a3ac23974503cb444c16fa359e936180ba143e95f11e7b06894cb48d125e902b)

John Lindquist  
[egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

🚀 AI Dev Essentials #15: Kimi K2, Groq Speed, and the Future of Dev Productivity

Unlock blazing dev productivity with Kimi K2, Groq, and the latest AI tools. Learn, code, and save with insider tips in AI Dev Essentials #15.

Keeping a LinkedIn profile current can be a tedious chore, especially when it's years out of date. This lesson demonstrates a powerful and often humorous workflow for delegating this entire task to an AI agent, using **Cursor IDE's Composer** combined with **Playwright** for robust browser automation.

You'll see a live, unscripted attempt to overhaul a severely outdated LinkedIn profile from start to finish. The process involves granting the AI control of a browser, instructing it to scrape relevant information from personal websites (like egghead.io), and then using that data to populate and update various sections of the LinkedIn profile, including the bio, work experience, and education.

**Workflow and Learnings Demonstrated:**

* **Initiating AI Control:** Kicking off a Playwright-controlled browser session directly from a prompt in Cursor.
* **Web Scraping & Context Gathering:** Guiding the AI to navigate multiple tabs, scrape biographical and professional information, and consolidate it into a structured document.
* **Automated Data Entry:** Instructing the agent to fill out LinkedIn profile fields, from simple text inputs to complex forms with date pickers.
* **Handling Automation Failures:** This lesson highlights the realities of AI automation, including dealing with modal dialogs, hidden file inputs, and unexpected UI behavior that can trip up an automated script.
* **Iterative Prompting & Manual Intervention:** Demonstrates how to refine prompts, provide additional information (like correcting dates or providing image URLs), and step in manually when the AI gets stuck, offering a realistic look at a human-in-the-loop workflow.
* **Post-Mortem Analysis:** Concludes by prompting the AI to analyze the entire conversation, identify all the failures and workarounds, and generate a new set of instructions to make the process smoother for future attempts.

This lesson provides a practical and insightful look into the capabilities and current limitations of using AI for complex web automation tasks, showcasing a workflow that blends AI-driven efficiency with necessary human oversight.

## Lessons Learned Prompt

If you'd like to try this on your own, start with the prompt below to avoid many of the issues discovered in this lesson:
~~~bash
# Playwright + LinkedIn Automation: Lessons Learned & Best Practices

## Overview
Automating LinkedIn profile updates with Playwright (especially via MCP or similar tools) can be powerful, but LinkedIn’s UI and security measures introduce unique challenges. This document summarizes failed attempts, successful workarounds, and workflow optimizations based on a real-world automation session.

---

## Common Automation Failures & Issues

### 1. **File Uploads (Profile & Banner Photos)**
- **Problem:** LinkedIn often uses hidden file inputs for uploads. Clicking the visible "Upload photo" button via automation fails because pointer events are intercepted or the input is visually hidden.
- **Symptoms:**
  - Timeout errors when clicking upload buttons.
  - File upload tool only works when the modal state is correctly detected.
- **Workarounds:**
  - If automation fails, prompt the user to manually click the upload button and select the file (ensure the file is downloaded to a known location).
  - After manual upload, automation can resume for cropping/saving steps.

### 2. **Modal/Overlay Interference**
- **Problem:** LinkedIn frequently displays modals, overlays, or dialogs (e.g., "Share your update") that block further actions.
- **Symptoms:**
  - Clicks on "Add education" or similar buttons are intercepted or ignored.
  - Automation gets stuck until the modal is dismissed.
- **Workarounds:**
  - Always check for and dismiss overlays before proceeding with the next action.
  - Use Playwright’s snapshot or accessibility tree to detect modal presence.

### 3. **Date and Field Inference**
- **Problem:** Automation may require date fields (e.g., education start/end) that the user doesn’t remember.
- **Workarounds:**
  - Use web search to infer missing data (e.g., law school graduation year).
  - Ask the user for approximate dates or permission to use reasonable defaults.

### 4. **UI Element State/Ref Changes**
- **Problem:** LinkedIn’s UI is dynamic; element references (refs) can change between sessions or after modals.
- **Workarounds:**
  - Always re-capture the page snapshot before interacting with new elements.
  - Avoid hardcoding refs; use semantic queries or re-query elements after UI changes.

---

## Workflow Optimizations & Best Practices

1. **Prepare All Assets in Advance**
   - Download images (profile, banner) to a known directory before starting automation.
   - Keep a local copy of all text content to be pasted into LinkedIn fields.

2. **Automate in Small, Verified Steps**
   - After each major action (e.g., section update), verify the UI state and check for modals.
   - Use Playwright’s snapshot/console to confirm the expected dialog is open.

3. **Manual Intervention Points**
   - Clearly document steps where automation is likely to fail (e.g., file uploads).
   - Provide the user with file paths and instructions for manual upload if needed.

4. **Error Handling & Recovery**
   - On failure, attempt to dismiss overlays and retry the action.
   - If repeated failures occur, log the error and suggest a manual workaround.

5. **Keep the User Informed**
   - Communicate what’s automated vs. what needs manual input.
   - Summarize what’s been completed and what’s pending after each session.

---

## Example: Optimized LinkedIn Banner Upload Workflow

1. **Download the Banner Image:**
   ```sh
   curl -L "<banner-url>" -o background-banner.jpg
   ```
2. **Open LinkedIn Profile and Click "Edit Background"**
3. **If Automation Fails to Click "Upload Photo":**
   - Prompt the user: “Please click the ‘Upload photo’ button and select `background-banner.jpg` from your local directory.”
4. **Resume Automation:**
   - Once the image is uploaded, continue with cropping/saving via automation.

---

## Conclusion
Automating LinkedIn with Playwright is possible but requires a hybrid approach: automate what you can, and gracefully handle or document manual steps. Always anticipate UI changes, overlays, and upload quirks. Document your workflow for future users and iterate as LinkedIn’s UI evolves. 
~~~

Update Your LinkedIn Profile with Cursor and the Playwright MCP

# AI Dev Essentials - Issue #14

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the **14th issue of AI Dev Essentials!**

I had family in town for the holiday last week, so I was AFK for a good portion. But when I stole some moments to sit at my desk, I explored the recently announced "Claude Hooks". I felt it a little difficult to add powerful commands based on the "payload" of the hooks, so I built out a library to allow me to author hooks using TypeScript/Bun and have full typing over the payloads: [claude-hooks](https://github.com/johnlindquist/claude-hooks). Running `npx claude-hooks` will install it into any of your projects using Claude code and you can just go in and tweak the body of the hook functions.

I think hooks (and capturing conversations in general) are a critical part of AI-driven development which I refer to as "AI wisdom" (memories from failures). We need to set up workflows so that our AIs tools are always learning and capturing a "post tool hook" and checking for errors codes, etc is critical information we can use to improve our workflows. I'll cover these concepts more in my upcoming CursorPro.ai course and live workshops.

Speaking of CursorPro.ai, I'm preparing to publish the first set of lessons. We're working on a way to give early access to the course as it's published rather than waiting for the complete release. More details next week. We'll have discounts and bundles for past workshop attendees.

Many workshop attendees have asked about the difference between the course and the workshop. CursorPro.ai allows us to cover each topic in depth and build out scenarios that wouldn't fit in a single-day workshop. The live workshops focus on the latest workflows and how everything connects.


## 🚀 Major Announcements

### Grok 4 Launch: xAI's Bold Claim to Supremacy

**Last night (July 9, 2025), Elon Musk's xAI unveiled Grok 4 in a delayed livestream, positioning it as "the world's most powerful AI model" with breakthroughs in reasoning, speed, and real-world benchmarks like 45% on Humanity's Last Exam (vs. competitors' 21-26%) and 95% on AIME math problems** ([NextBigFuture](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/07/xai-grok-4-launch-soon-about-45-60-minutes-late.html), [xAI](https://x.com/xai/status/1943158495588815072)).

The release includes a new $300/month "SuperGrok Heavy" subscription for unlimited access, alongside [controversy over recent antisemitic posts](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5394085-musk-grok-version-antisemitism-controversy/) from prior Grok versions that xAI had to address ([Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-10/musk-unveils-grok-4-ai-chatbot-after-antisemitism-controversy)). Musk teased it's "the same model physicists use," hinting at advanced scientific applications ([Teslarati](https://www.teslarati.com/xai-launches-grok-4-supergrok-heavy-subscription-details/), [Tom's Guide](https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/grok-4-is-here-elon-musk-says-its-the-same-model-physicists-use)).

Initial reactions from notable figures and the community are pouring in, but with only a couple of hours of hands-on time for most, these are very early impressions—expect more nuanced opinions as developers stress-test it in real workflows like agentic coding or Cursor integrations.

- **Elon Musk (xAI founder)**: During the livestream, Musk highlighted Grok 4's edge, saying it's designed to "understand the universe" and push toward AGI, building on xAI's mission ([Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/grok-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-elon-musk-xai-explained-2025-7), [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/grok-4-elon-musk-xai-antisemitic-posts/))
- **Brian Wang (NextBigFuture)**: "XAI Grok 4 is the Top AI Model," praising its benchmark dominance and potential to lead the industry ([NextBigFuture](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/07/xai-grok-4-launch-soon-about-45-60-minutes-late.html))
- **Arslan (@ui_jedi, UX-focused founder)**: "Grok-4 is definitely next level. It's going to be a complete game changer," reacting to early demos of its reasoning capabilities
- **Pasha Kalachev (@glass_hamlet, writer and futurist)**: More critical after a quick test, noting "Grok performed terribly" in a simple translation task compared to GPT-4o, taking two minutes and getting it wrong
- **The Jake Buzz (@thejakebuzz)**: "Grok 4 is miserably slow. Like 1998 dial slow," highlighting inference delays in early usage
- **GPTProductivity (@GPTProductivity)**: On the positive side, "Grok 4's inference speed crushes competitors for real-time tasks," citing 1k tokens/sec benchmarks

Technical notes: Grok 4 scores 73 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (vs. OpenAI o3 at 70), trained on up to 200,000 GPUs, with API pricing at $3/1M input tokens and $15/1M output tokens.

With the dust still settling, the AI dev community is just starting to form deeper takes—watch for benchmarks in coding arenas like SWE-Bench or agentic flows.

> My personal initial impressions have been pretty solid. I haven't had a chance to throw any coding tasks at it yet. I just noticed it was added to Cursor, but everyone is immediately hitting limits. I'll make sure to dig much deeper over the next week.

### VS Code Open Sources AI Capabilities

**VS Code has reached a major milestone as an open source AI editor, fulfilling their commitment to democratize AI development tools.**

The team has [announced](https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2025/05/19/openSourceAIEditor) their progress on open sourcing the AI capabilities that power VS Code's intelligent features:

- **Open source commitment**: All AI features being developed transparently
- **Community contributions**: Now accepting PRs for AI enhancements
- **Extensibility**: New APIs for building AI-powered extensions
- **Privacy-first**: Local AI models and data processing options
- **Technical details**: Full visibility into telemetry, agent mode implementation, and prompt engineering

> Open-source FTW. I love seeing how fast VS Code is moving. I'm extremely curious to see if this move enables some random genius to submit a PR that shakes up the entire IDE landscape.

## 🛠️ Developer Tooling & MCP Updates

### AI SDK Introduces prepareStep for Message Modification

**The AI SDK team has released a powerful new feature for multi-step AI generations: the prepareStep function for modifying messages at each step.**

This [update](https://x.com/aisdk/status/1942965897314054645) provides granular control over context in complex AI workflows:

- **Per-step modifications**: Edit messages between generation steps
- **Context optimization**: Remove irrelevant information as workflows progress
- **Memory efficiency**: Keep token usage under control
- **Agent support**: Essential for building sophisticated AI agents

> This is a subtle but incredibly powerful feature. When building multi-step AI workflows, context bloat is a real problem. Being able to prune and modify messages between steps opens up entirely new architectural patterns for AI applications

### xmcp.dev: TypeScript Framework for MCP Servers

**A new TypeScript framework called xmcp.dev makes building MCP servers as simple as creating API routes.**

The [framework](https://xmcp.dev/) brings Next.js-style developer experience to MCP:

```
middleware.ts
tools/
  greet.ts
  search.ts
```

Key features:
- **Native Next.js integration**: Works seamlessly with existing Next.js apps
- **Vercel deployment**: One-click deployment to Vercel's edge network
- **TypeScript-first**: Full type safety and autocomplete
- **Simple structure**: Organize tools in a familiar file-based routing pattern

> I'm really liking what Next.js is doing to support MCP. I love conventions when it comes to setting up projects like this. Number one, because it makes it easier to find examples where I can just copy and paste in someone else's code and tweak it a little bit. And number two, because it makes it easier for the AIs to understand the conventions. As a complete side note, I honestly think the conventions versus configuration argument we've had in the developer space for so many years is pretty much put to bed with conventions being so much better for training AIs to learn how to build them.

### Hugging Face Unveils Reachy Mini: AI Robot for Developers

**Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics have launched Reachy Mini, their first hackable AI robot designed for developers and learners of all ages.**

[Thomas Wolf announced](https://hf.co/blog/reachy-mini) this collaboration between Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics:

- **Affordable pricing**: Positioned as "tiny price" for broad accessibility
- **Open-source powered**: Built on Hugging Face's ecosystem and community
- **AI-ready**: Integrates with latest vision, speech, and text AI models
- **Educational focus**: Designed for AI builders from beginners to experts
- **Hackable platform**: Easy to code and customize for various applications

Key details:
- First deliveries expected after summer 2025
- Built to code, learn, and share within the AI community
- Combines hardware robotics with modern AI capabilities

> This is one of those projects that I look at and I'm tempted to buy it. But I don't quite see myself using it. I'm definitely more of a person who would just add another monitor to my desk to display more AI information and to have full control over UIs and such. But maybe we'll see someone build something extremely creative that I haven't thought about that will make me reconsider. I do love seeing hardware like this being released into the world, even if it seems a little gimmicky at first take.

## 💼 AI Ecosystem & Business Updates

### Replit Partners with Microsoft for Enterprise AI Development

**Replit and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership to bring "Vibe Coding" to enterprise teams, making AI-assisted development accessible to non-engineers.**

The [official announcement](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/replit-and-microsoft-partner-to-bring-agentic-coding-to-enterprise-customers-303212876.html) details the partnership:

- **Azure integration**: Deploy Replit applications directly to Azure
- **Marketplace availability**: Purchase Replit through Azure Marketplace
- **Enterprise security**: SOC 2 Type II compliant with enterprise-grade controls
- **Democratized development**: Enable non-technical team members to build software

Key capabilities coming soon:
- Seamless deployment from Replit to Azure infrastructure
- Streamlined procurement through Azure Marketplace
- Enhanced security features for enterprise customers

> I have limited experience with Replit. I know many enterprise-level customers are using tools to build up AI-pipelines for responding to customer support, etc, so this seems like a natural move. When reading stories like this, we have to remember how much "in-house" software is built at the enterprise level, because Replit's nowhere near capable of shippeng "Enterprise" software.

### Cursor Addresses Pricing Confusion

**Cursor has acknowledged missing the mark with their recent pricing update and is taking steps to make things right.**

The team [announced](https://cursor.com/blog/june-2025-pricing):

- **Customer refunds**: All affected users being refunded
- **Pricing clarification**: Clearer documentation of how pricing works
- **Community feedback**: Actively incorporating user suggestions

> The AI cycle of releasing tools for cheap/free to attract customers and then raising prices when it's time to make money has been a common pattern. I still think Cursor's $20 plan for unlimited "auto mode", unlimited tab complete, and $20 of api credits is an incredible value. I think we all got a little spoiled by the cheap sonnet pricing and are a bit frustrated that we have to be a bit more careful with our planning/prompting when in "auto mode". I'm confident with the team at Cursor (especially now that they've hired away the Claude Code devs) that they'll be able to make "auto mode" a lot more reliable and accurate.

## ⚡ Quick Updates

### Gemini API Launches Batch Mode
Google's Gemini API now offers [batch processing with 50% cost savings](https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/multimodal/batch-prediction/gemini-batch) for large-scale AI workloads. Process jobs within 24 hours at half the standard API cost, with support for Google Search and context caching.

### Gemini 3.0 Sightings Spark Speculation
The AI community is buzzing after references to "Gemini 3.0" were spotted in a recent commit to Google's open-source Gemini CLI repository. In test code for handling quota limits, strings mention "gemini-beta-3.0-pro" alongside existing models, suggesting internal testing of Google's next major LLM iteration is underway. A "gemini-3.0-flash-beta" variant was also noted, hinting at both Pro and lightweight Flash editions.

> Smarter Gemini w/ 1M context window + better tool calling? Gimme, gimme, gimme!

### Supermemory Revamps OpenSearch AI
The team has [relaunched OpenSearch AI](https://opensearch.supermemory.ai/) with their own memory infrastructure, delivering a truly personalized, open-source Perplexity alternative.

### Hugging Face MCP Integration in VS Code
You can now use state-of-the-art AI models directly in VS Code through the [Hugging Face MCP server](https://huggingface.co/settings/mcp), including image generation with Flux models right in your chat interface.

### Voice Agent Cost Calculators
Several tools are now available for calculating voice AI implementation costs, including [ComparevoiceAI](https://comparevoiceai.com/) and [Softcery's calculator](https://softcery.com/ai-voice-agents-calculator), comparing conversational AI platforms, real-time models, and custom pipelines.

### AI Development Failure Rates Hit 80%
Recent industry reports show AI projects fail at twice the rate of traditional IT projects, with 42% of companies abandoning most AI initiatives in 2025. The primary causes: starting with solutions instead of problems, poor data quality, and focusing on technology over business value.

### Claude 4 Performance Observations
Community members are reporting perceived performance degradation in Claude 4, though no official confirmation from Anthropic yet.

## 🔍 Deep Dive: AI Model Performance During Peak Hours

### Is Claude 4 Getting Worse?

Following widespread user reports about Claude 4's performance variations, I dove deep into the evidence around AI models degrading during peak usage. Here's what the data shows:

**Official Incident Reports**
- **[Anthropic Status Page](https://status.anthropic.com/)** (July 1-10): Multiple elevated error rate incidents during global active hours, particularly affecting Claude 4 Sonnet and Opus
- **Pattern**: Errors often spike during US business hours (e.g., 5:00-23:50 UTC), suggesting load-related issues

**Technical Mechanisms**
Research and industry practices reveal several ways models degrade under load:

1. **Dynamic Quantization**: Providers may reduce model precision (FP32 to INT8) on-the-fly to handle more requests, trading accuracy for capacity ([ArXiv paper on quantization](https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.04652), [Red Hat on LLM optimization](https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/12/10/optimize-llm-applications-dynamic-quantization))
2. **GPU Memory Limitations**: Bursty traffic during peaks exceeds GPU memory, causing throttling and higher failure rates ([ArXiv: Efficient LLM Serving](https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.04652))
3. **Latency Issues**: Slower responses during peak hours indirectly degrade perceived quality ([Microsoft on load testing](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/fasttrack/understanding-user-load-and-api-limits-within-the-microsoft-365-ecosystem/4350496))

**Community Observations**
Consistent patterns across platforms:
- [Reddit r/ClaudeAI](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/) users report Claude going from "10x better than ChatGPT" to noticeably worse during high-traffic periods
- X users like [@mckaywrigley](https://x.com/mckaywrigley) note "insane difference" in performance, hypothesizing quantized models during peaks
- Time-based patterns: [@iuditg](https://x.com/iuditg) reports ChatGPT/Claude quality degrades after 7 PM IST (regional peak)

**The Quantization Hypothesis**
Multiple sources support the theory that providers use dynamic quantization under load:
- It's a standard industry technique for serving more requests on the same hardware ([Medium: Complete Guide to Quantized Models](https://rumn.medium.com/complete-guide-to-quantized-models-for-llms-d1e3f6bb6ac5))
- Users report models feeling "dumber" - more hallucinations, losing context faster
- API often performs better than web UI (potentially less affected by load management)

> I've been noticing the same results myself, where Claude used to be able to fully work through complex scenarios with minimal instructions, but more recently, I've had to do much deeper planning and hand-holding. So, when I saw more people posting about this online, I thought I'd dig deeper and see if there's any evidence to back it up. Unfortunately, it looks like there is.

### Working with GPT-4.1 "Beast Mode"

Burke Holland from the VS Code team created a GPT-4.1 "Beast Mode" configuration for GitHub Copilot that developers are experimenting with, achieving impressive results that even earned an "A-" grade from Claude 4 when reviewing the code quality.

The community is actively sharing [optimization strategies](https://www.reddit.com/r/GithubCopilot/comments/1llewl7/getting_41_to_behave_like_claude/) for getting GPT-4.1 to perform at Claude-level quality.


## 🧙‍♂️ CursorPro.ai Updates

### Early Access Coming Soon!

The first lessons for [CursorPro.ai](https://cursorpro.ai) are nearly ready. We're working on a system to give early access as lessons are published, rather than waiting for the complete course. Expect details next week.

**What's Different from Workshops:**
- **Self-paced course**: Covers each topic in depth with scenarios that wouldn't fit in a single-day workshop
- **Live workshops**: Focus on the latest workflows and how everything connects
- **Bundle options**: Discounts available for past workshop attendees

The course will dive deep into concepts like AI wisdom (learning from failures), Claude hooks implementation, and the workflows I've been developing with tools like Pieces and MCP.

## ✨ Live Workshop: Unlock Cursor's Full Potential ✨

* **When:** Friday, July 18, 2025  
  - 5:00 AM - 10:00 AM (PDT)  
  - 🇬🇧 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (UTC+1)  
  - 🇪🇺 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM (UTC+2)  
* **Where:** Zoom  
* **Investment:** $200.00 ~~$249~~ *Early Bird Discount*

➡️ [**Register Now**](https://buy.stripe.com/6oU14g2ep9yGd7j5ho9fW0a?prefilled_promo_code=FO7XVVCA)

_Limited spots available. Secure yours today!_  
_*Discount applied at checkout*_  

---

That's all for this week! With Grok 4 releasing and hints of Gemini 3.0 and GPT-5 on the horizon, it's definitely going to be interesting to see how the latest state of the art models impact AI-driven development.

John Lindquist  
[egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #14: Grok 4, VS Code AI, and the Latest in Developer Tools

Explore Grok 4’s launch, VS Code AI open source updates, new AI dev tools, CursorPro.ai early access, and the latest trends in agentic coding workflows.

Bite-Sized Screencasts for Web Developers that Hate Long Boring Videos