Seroter's daily reads: tell agents the why, 72 trials testing if agent skills help
rseroter · x · 2026-09-17
Richard Seroter's daily reading list (Sept 16, #868) curates notable AI/engineering pieces:
- Tell agents the why, not just the how: go beyond specs and reference material—state the goal you're trying to accomplish.
- The documentation you have is not the documentation your AI needs: humans can sense when docs are untrustworthy; agents assume they're accurate and act on them, making trusted docs more critical than ever.
- Agent Substrate on GKE: high-density, scalable, trusted agent infrastructure that runs anywhere Kubernetes does, especially strong on GKE.
- The death of the static UI: context-aware, adaptive mobile apps are becoming the norm in 2026.
- Do agent skills help? Karl ran 72 trials and found many loaded skills make little difference—an argument for benchmarking your own setups.
- The value of being bored in the AI and attention economy: stop filling every moment with feeds and let your mind wander.
- Plus Google topping the Forrester Wave for public cloud platforms, Q3 2026.
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