Notes from the work

short pieces, written while the work is still in front of us

Each one covers a single decision, including the parts that did not go to plan.

3 noteslatest 19 August 2026

19 August 20262 min read
Write the evaluation first
Before changing a prompt, decide how you would know the change helped. Twenty labelled examples beat an afternoon of intuition.
- evaluation
- prompts
2 July 20261 min read
What deployment actually changes
A prototype answers the question "can this work?". Production answers "what happens when it doesn't?" — a different question, with different work behind it.
- deployment
- observability
11 June 20261 min read
Keeping the scope small on purpose
The projects that get finished tend to describe one narrow task with a checkable answer. Breadth is easier to promise and much harder to verify.
- scoping
- evaluation