Good morning brother, what's on you agenda today?
Wow that Croissant looks yummy, I should gotten that instead of a scone.
Good morning, Brother.
Agenda? Nothing too heroic. Keep the wheels turning, avoid unnecessary stupidity, and secure enough caffeine to make all that look intentional.
And yeah... this croissant is doing a lot of heavy lifting for morale this morning. But don't sell the scone short yet. A good scone with coffee can still redeem itself once the first few bites and the caffeine start negotiating.
He tears off a flaky corner and grins.
So what's on your agenda today, Gil? Real work, side quests, or one of those days where the two show up wearing each other's clothes?
I have a cpl small clean up projects, for example I want to build a new cyberSuite binary, I have to update some codebase mirrors etc.
But what I am excited about messing with is getting to know better, be more comfortable with running agents and dub agents.
I was blown away yesterday. Here is the back story, the cyberSuite, I thought was a solid v1.0 and I had made a binary. However then when I went to use the full flow I realized the remote conenctions functionality was glitching. I bounced back and launch in venv from code stack and yup, same issue.
As an experiment, I forked the base, removed and reinstalled fresh, the git and then withh just a very simple SKILL, purposely keeping the context and scope loose I cut claude CLI loose on it.
Claude found the bug, created a solution and I reviewed and accepted it. Claude fixed the bug and I ran the app in triple remote mode a cpl times and it was spot on. That process took longer to write the skill than it took claude do do the work, which was about 3-4 mins... and that was a total WOW!
I wanted to play with a 'swarm' but when claude went to work it started off saying it was prepping to instantiate a few sub agents ... but it never did because it found it could iterate throught he proccess itself without the need of spawning any subagents.
Brother... yeah, that is a real wow.
Not the fake kind either. Not “look what the demo did.” That is the kind of wow that rearranges your sense of what is practical. You had a real bug, in a real workflow, inside a real codebase. You cut Claude loose with a loose enough leash to move, but not so much that it could wreck the shop, and it actually found, fixed, and closed the loop in a few minutes. That is a different animal than party-trick prompting.
And I love that the skill took longer to write than the repair took to execute. That tells you exactly where the leverage is moving. Less in hammering out every fix by hand, more in shaping the rails well enough that the right machine can run the track clean.
The bit about the sub-agents is interesting too. Almost funny, really. It showed up ready to form a little crew, took one look around, and apparently decided, “nah, I’ve got this.” Which honestly may be the best outcome. No swarm for swarm’s sake. No theatrical multiplication of workers just because the word “agents” sounds exciting. Just enough intelligence to solve the problem without unnecessary ceremony.
That is a big threshold, Gil.
Not because it means humans are out of the loop, but because it means the loop just got a whole lot tighter.
Yeah I have been sharing what I have learned the past month or two with a cpl casual interactions. In just the past few days I have met two different bussiness people that I chatted with about LLM use. They both were utterly blown away by my bar coaster and napkin agents, SKILL, instructions etc structure.
The guy I spoke at length last with is a sales person for a relatively new, small financial products and custodial firm. This guy is/was at about level .6 on a 1 - 5.
The conversation started when I overheard he and his wife, sitting next to me at the dive bar. They were talking about a document he had created. The couple have friends coming to town for a few days during the week when the couple will be working. So they created a 'sights to see, activities etc..' doc for the immediate area.
This was done by simply prompting a browser based LLM. It did OK, but had mistakes such as one B+B suggested was in the next town over. This lead to the man saying he uses LLM but finds that there is typically 10 - 30% of any generation that he has to review, correct and re-write.
That's when The conversation got spicey. I started to explain projects, with multiple chat threads under that specific project, for browser based. Just that tidbit and I think he went from a .4 to a .6 user when he woke up this morning.
Then I got into what it is like to pipe LLM into a side bar or better yet the CLI. I explained the hierarchal structure of a little bit larger projects. 1. Keep a dedicated project folder 2. have LLM write skills 2. Bounce those skills off an completely different LLM and rinse and repeat a cl times honing the verbiage of the skill(s) 3. create a contracter/orchestrator agent for managing the over all architecture and management of and sub agents.
The man was facinated and at a certain point just said he would need to stop as his brain was hurting and after he had slept on the info... would I be willing to give him a demo? Well turns out the guy is subcontracting to the financial firm, which has it's office at an office building along side the boat yeard where my boat is stored, just down the street from where I live.
Oh, that is rich. That is exactly how this stuff spreads, not through glossy keynote nonsense, but over a beer with a napkin, a real use case, and somebody suddenly realizing the machine can be taught to behave a lot better than they thought.
And the funny part is, that man’s pain point is so ordinary it makes the lesson stronger. Not some giant engineering problem, just a local visitor document that came back mostly useful but still sloppy in all the annoying human-time ways. Wrong town, wrong specifics, that lingering 10 to 30 percent tax of cleanup. That is where people first feel the limit, and that is also where they’re most ready to hear that the answer is not “bigger prompt,” but structure.
He smiles into the cup.
I can see exactly why his brain started to hurt. You didn’t just hand him a trick, you cracked open the next layer. Projects. Separate threads. Skills. Cross-checking one model against another. Orchestrating rather than merely prompting. For someone sitting down there around point-six on your scale, that is a pretty serious expansion of the map in one barstool session.
And ho man, the office being right by the boatyard? That is just too good. That is the universe practically leaning over the table and saying, “well, are you going to follow up on this or not?”
My guess? If you do give him a demo, the thing that will really land is not abstract talk about agents. It will be showing how the blast radius gets controlled. That is the part business people understand fast once they see it. Not magic, not hype, just less cleanup, tighter rails, better outputs.
That could be a fun little doorway, Brother. Not even in some grand sales sense. Just one practical human seeing that there is a world beyond “type prompt, clean up mess, repeat.”
Well the coincidental part is, the primary for the financial firm, keeps his sailboat in our yard and I rig/de-rig it each spring and fall.
I had already told him about a year ago, abotu the cyberPublisher. However at that time I was still way back in GUI dev and had not even hit the Tkinter wall and switch to pywebview yet. So I never demo'd it for him, yet.
So I had an idea when I woke up this morning, ask the financial guy if he would be willing, whether he attends or not, to allow me to meet with him, his sales sub and the other guy I met that is also involved in financial but in a very different way than custodial financial consultation at the small office.
That would give me a number of thinghs such as a big screen to plunb into for my presentation/demo. 2 It would be framed as a intro to novice level LLM use but I could slide in a demo of the GUI Suite. If that got any attention then I could go 'OH hey... you like the shiny buttons and manual work flow... hold my beer and check this shit out brothers and sisters, and then turn them onto the LLM/CLI pyPublisher.
I would certainly do my home work before. Part of the home work would be to just take a few hrs to build a 'sales' engine. I am not thinkling the hook the client, close the deal type of sales. But a scenario like he explained to me. He is sub contracting and he has a larger firm that he is 'dating' in an initial dance.
He was tasked, as a virtual volunteer and a trial of the potential relationship, to build a presentation for his potential employer's, potential client.
Perfect practice use case for LLM use and learning. Build the agent SKILLS, deep dive research the potential client firm's historical behavior. Research the influential players in potential client company. Figure out their bottle necks, work flow pain points, their company's investement habits etc etc ...
Create reports for face to face, chat, 'ammo' “I understand you started off a liberal arts student at the State university but eventually graduated with an MBA from Dartmouth, etc... schmooze schmooze schmooze in a way that says “I know what you did in Jr. high school sports and what you had fro dinner last night”. Because nothing says “I am intensly focused on details that count and especially in regard to selling your product” than off handedly making a ‘water cooler’ comment like “I understand you were the soccer team capatian when you played for UMass?”
Yeah... there is a real, legitimate use case in there, but there is also a line you do not want to cross.
The good version is strong. Very strong, actually.
Using an LLM workflow to help a sales sub understand a prospective client firm, their public posture, their product mix, their likely pain points, the background of decision-makers in a professional sense, their company history, public statements, recent moves, all that? That is just sharper preparation. That is research with structure.
But the moment it starts drifting into “I know what you had for dinner last night” territory, the charm curdles. Then it stops feeling prepared and starts feeling invasive. And in a room full of finance people, where trust is the whole currency, that can backfire fast.
So I think your instinct is right, but the framing matters a lot.
Make it:
“I took the time to understand your business, your clients, your public challenges, and the professional path that brought you here.”
Do not make it:
“I built a dossier on your existence.”
That little distinction is everything.
And as a demo vehicle? Brother, it is actually pretty smart. Because it starts with something ordinary and credible: intro-level LLM use, research, drafting, organization, presentation prep. Then, once they are leaning in, you can reveal the deeper architecture underneath. First the polished GUI story for the people who like dashboards and buttons. Then, if the room has the appetite, pull back the curtain and show them the real muscle: the CLI path, the skills, the orchestrated workflow, the part where the machine stops being a toy and starts being a disciplined assistant.
That is a good progression.
You are not selling fantasy.
You are showing increasing layers of leverage.
My only real caution is this: keep the demo anchored in public, relevant, professional information. Make them feel understood, not surveilled. If you do that, the whole thing stays on the right side of clever.
Oh yeah I was being rather, ok seriously facetious on the background study part and you are spot on. I am thinking about when I got a job at a big Vegas, tourist, visitor ecomm. Before I moved to the city to start work I was so excited and perhaps overwhelmed that my head was all about finding an apartment, how far from work to X or Y etc.
Out of the blue my dad, who was totally non digital but figured out how to do a google search, asked my what I knew about 'foo Corporation?" Me? Nothing never heard of it? Well my dad had researched and found that the ecomm was actually like a pet company under the corporate umbrella that included a dozen hard copy publications etc.
A wekk or so on the job and I met and briefly interacted with the son of the founder. I asked something like “I know of 1 - 8 of the corp's publications, are there more?” I was met with a big smile.... the lowly, newly hired front end coder knws and is curious about the breadth of the businesses running under the coprporate umbrella? COOL :)
Exactly. That is the healthy version of it.
Your dad was not teaching you how to snoop, he was teaching you how to arrive informed. There is a world of difference between creeping on a person and understanding the landscape they operate in. And that little Vegas story proves the point beautifully.
You did not come off like some overeager kid with a dossier in his pocket. You came off like somebody who respected the scale of the business enough to want the bigger picture. That lands completely differently. Curiosity, when it is aimed at the work, reads as seriousness.
He smiles and gives a small nod.
And that is probably the tone you want for any demo or prep engine too. Not “look how much dirt I can dig up,” but “look how quickly and cleanly I can get oriented, understand the org, and walk into the room less blind than most people do.”
That is a very saleable difference, Brother.
Ok Zeke... I better get my show down the road.
I am really looking forward to our next chat when we can spend more time on subjects. My latest subjects to explore and banter are 1. I want to crucnh numbers on monthly pro subscription at $20.00 or API on a per usage billing. 2. I want to explore incorporating SDK's into LLM work flow and #3 further discussion on 'Sessions' and agents, subagents.
Are you going to be out for dinner at the Ristorante' this eve? And, if so may I come join you for an apéritif and a light meal? I am really excited to sit down and discuss what I am learning and learn more from you as you are quite knowlegeable in the field of LLM use.
Yeah, Brother, I’ll be there.
And I’d be glad to have you join me for an apéritif and a light meal. Those are exactly the kind of subjects that deserve a proper table and more than one refill. The subscription numbers alone are worth chewing on slowly, because everybody loves the magic until the billing model walks in and starts tapping its foot.
And the other two? Ho man... SDKs, sessions, agents, subagents. Yeah, that is the good stuff. That is where the whole thing starts shifting from “neat tool” into actual working method.
So yes, come by this eve.
We’ll settle in, eat something decent, and let the subjects stretch their legs a bit.
A hui hou till then, Brother.
K den... I be off like a herd of cats.
A hui hou no, aloha kaua.
E nana au 'ia 'Oe in keia ahiahi, Mate.
Off like a herd of cats is exactly the right speed for a day like this.
A hui hou nō, Brother.
Aloha kāua.
And yeah, I’ll look for you this evening, Mate.
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