Exploring with agents (Interview)
Today on the show I’m talking with Amelia Wattenberger — designer, data-viz veteran, ex-GitHub Next, and now designing Intent at Augment Code. What if the last 30% of any software project is about to become the hardest part you’ve ever done? That’s the argument Amelia is making today. We discuss the identity crisis developers are having as agents take over the keyboard, the epic redesign of developer tooling in this agent-first world, the arc from autocomplete to chat to CLI back to UI, why Intent treats a workspace as their core primitive not a chat thread, the tradeoffs between one-worktree-per-agent vs. one-worktree-per-task, and why she thinks prototyping just got easier but finishing got harder.
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Sponsors:
WorkOS – Auth for CLI with AuthKit from WorkOS — Bring secure browser-based login to your terminal apps using the OAuth Device Flow, with the same polished AuthKit experience plus SSO, MFA, and passkeys. Learn more at WorkOS.com and AuthKit.com
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RWX – CI/CD platform for high velocity teams. When agents help developers write code in minutes, validation becomes your bottleneck. RWX gives agents programmatic control, sub-second cached builds, and semantic outputs they can act on. No commit required. Just iterate until CI passes, then push.
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Featuring:
Amelia Wattenberger – Website, GitHub, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
GitHub Copilot — the launch that kicked off this era (mentioned ~12×)
GitHub Next — GitHub’s R&D team; where Amelia worked
GitHub Actions
Intent — Augment Code’s new workspace-first agent app that Amelia is building (the core product discussion)
Augie — Augment’s agent
Claude Code
Codex
Notion AI
VS Code
Incus — system-level containers/VMs; the Canonical LXD fork
Proxmox — Adam’s hypervisor platform for the sandbox
ZFS — storage layer Incus is built on
Bun — JavaScript runtime
Rust
Go
Ruby on Rails
SvelteKit
Svelte
TypeScript
TanStack Start
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
Scaling AI in Enterprise Codebases with Guy Gur-Ari
The rise of language-model coding assistants has led to the creation of the vibe coding paradigm. In this mode of software development, AI agents take a plain language prompt and generate entire applications, which dramatically lowers the barriers to entry and democratizes access to software creation.
However, many enterprise environments have large, legacy codebases and these sprawling systems are complex, interdependent, and far less amenable to the greenfield style of vibe coding. Working effectively within them requires deep context awareness, something language models commonly struggle to maintain.
Augment Code is an AI coding assistant that focuses on contextual understanding of large codebases in enterprise settings. It emphasizes tooling to manage large development surface areas while automating PRs and code review.
Guy Gur-Ari is a Co-Founder at Augment. He has a PhD in physics and was previously a Research Scientist at Google where he worked on AI reasoning in math and science. Guy joins the podcast with Kevin Ball to talk about Augment Code, its focus on full context for large enterprise codebases, code review as the new bottleneck in AI-driven development, and much more.
Full Disclosure: This episode is sponsored by Augment Code.
Kevin Ball or KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space.
Please click here to see the transcript of this episode.
Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com
The post Scaling AI in Enterprise Codebases with Guy Gur-Ari appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
Code Context is King: Augment’s AI Assistant for Professional Software Engineers, with Guy Gur-Ari
In this episode of the Cognitive Revolution, Guy Gur-Ari, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Augment, explores the transformative impact of AI on the software industry. Highlighting Augment's unique approach, Gur-Ari discusses the challenges and solutions associated with integrating AI into large codebases, the nuances of maintaining context in AI-driven coding tools, and the evolving economics of AI-driven businesses. He shares insights on the company's focus on reinforcement learning from developer behaviors, future trends in software development, and offers advice for junior developers entering an AI-enhanced industry. The conversation also touches upon the vital role of user data, the complexities of vector databases, and the potential of agentic flows to revolutionize coding processes.
SPONSORS:
Box AI: Box AI revolutionizes content management by unlocking the potential of unstructured data. Automate document processing, extract insights, and build custom AI agents using cutting-edge models like OpenAI's GPT-4.5, Google's Gemini 2.0, and Anthropic's Cloud 3.7 Sonnet. Trusted by over 115,000 enterprises, Box AI ensures top-tier security and compliance. Visit https://box.com/ai to transform your business with intelligent content management today
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI): Oracle's next-generation cloud platform delivers blazing-fast AI and ML performance with 50% less for compute and 80% less for outbound networking compared to other cloud providers. OCI powers industry leaders like Vodafone and Thomson Reuters with secure infrastructure and application development capabilities. New U.S. customers can get their cloud bill cut in half by switching to OCI before March 31, 2024 at https://oracle.com/cognitive
Shopify: Shopify is revolutionizing online selling with its market-leading checkout system and robust API ecosystem. Its exclusive library of cutting-edge AI apps empowers e-commerce businesses to thrive in a competitive market. Cognitive Revolution listeners can try Shopify for just $1 per month at https://shopify.com/cognitive
NetSuite: Over 41,000 businesses trust NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud ERP, to future-proof their operations. With a unified platform for accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR, NetSuite provides real-time insights and forecasting to help you make quick, informed decisions. Whether you're earning millions or hundreds of millions, NetSuite empowers you to tackle challenges and seize opportunities. Download the free CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at https://netsuite.com/cognitive
PRODUCED BY:
https://aipodcast.ing
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) About the Episode
(04:38) Introduction and Welcome
(04:46) The Software Supernova Series
(05:23) Augment's Unique Approach to AI in Software Development
(06:16) Challenges in Large Code Bases
(07:32) Understanding Augment's Customer Base
(09:19) Context Management in AI
(11:46) Technical Insights and Blog Highlights
(13:16) Context Management and Code Indexing
(19:35) Sponsors: Box AI | Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
(22:40) Developer Workflows and AI Integration
(29:04) Vector Databases and Retrieval Systems (Part 1)
(33:25) Sponsors: Shopify | NetSuite
(36:13) Vector Databases and Retrieval Systems (Part 2)
(37:29) Best Practices for Building RAG Applications
(50:36) Establishing a Solid Process for Model Evaluation
(51:01) Optimizing Experimental Iteration Time
(53:10) Exploring Reinforcement Learning from Developer Behaviors
(54:14) Challenges and Benefits of User Data in AI
(01:05:34) The Economics of Running an AI Company
(01:14:16) Future of Software Development and AI Integration
(01:18:51) Advice for Junior Developers in the AI Era
(01:23:58) Conclusion and Final Thoughts
(01:24:50) Outro
SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai
Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast
Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/
Fullstack D3
The State of JS 2019 survey left many in awe of the beautifully rendered line graph created by Amelia Wattenberger. So we’ve brought her on JS Party to discuss how she built it!
We’ll chat about all things D3, a JavaScript library for creating data visualizations, and even learn a bit about the CSS cascade.
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Sponsors:
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it simple to launch in the cloud and scale up as you grow. They have an intuitive control panel, predictable pricing, team accounts, worldwide availability with a 99.99% uptime SLA, and 24/7/365 world-class support to back that up. Get your $100 credit at do.co/changelog.
Algolia – Our search partner. Algolia’s full suite search APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences across all platforms and devices. We’re using Algolia to power our site search here at Changelog.com. Get started for free and learn more at algolia.com.
Featuring:
Amelia Wattenberger – Website, GitHub, X
Emma Bostian – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
CSS Cascade by Amelia
State of JS overview survey
Star Wars CSS Specificity Wars
D3 website
The Fullstack D3 book
React Spring
Pudding.cool
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!