LucidWonk is where I think out loud about the biggest shift software has faced: what happens to how we build, and who we need to be as leaders, when agents do the building.

I've loved reading for as long as I can remember, and after my first creative writing class that love sharpened into something more specific: a pull toward bringing ideas to life. Naturally, at least naturally for me, that led to engineering, where an idea can be turned into something tangible. But I never left writing behind. From the very start of my career I'd write myself a story to get my head around whatever needed to be done, and I still do. Putting thoughts into words does two things for me at once: it refines the idea, pushing it toward a simpler, more elegant solution, and it's quietly cathartic.

Across 30+ years I've built and led engineering teams through more than one of the industry's reinventions, in its architecture, in its development practices, and most of all in how we serve the customer. I've designed systems at scale and done a fair share of innovating along the way, and I've found that the periods of greatest change are where I do my best work, accelerating through the curves and turning new ways of working into strategic advantage. All that change pales next to the cycle we've only just begun. True to form, this is me working my way through it.

You don't have to listen closely to hear the click, clack, click of the AI rollercoaster starting its first long climb. None of us chose to get on, and there's no getting off. The track ahead is steep, with blind turns. What we can do is learn to read it. With more than a few nudges from my closest colleagues, I'm writing these musings in the hope that a little insight helps you see the turns coming, and take back some control before the next drop.

Much of this thinking is grounded in Forge, a context-engineering system I'm building to direct agents through real software work. The writing comes first; the tools follow.

The name

Lucid — bright ideas lit against a dark canvas. Wonk — the precision and rigor to make them hold up. The whole thing runs on one belief: clarity is a competitive advantage, and it's in short supply right now.

Elsewhere

The best place to follow the work is LinkedIn, where I post new essays and the conversations around them. You can also subscribe via RSS.