Letter to a future hire

The interesting thing about long-context models isn't that they can read more — it's that they finally make the retrieval problem optional. When a model can hold the whole repo in context, the question shifts from "what should I fetch?" to "what should I show?". That's a UX question, not an infrastructure one.

The interesting thing about long-context models isn't that they can read more — it's that they finally make the retrieval problem optional. When a model can hold the whole repo in context, the question shifts from "what should I fetch?" to "what should I show?". That's a UX question, not an infrastructure one.

A good error message answers three questions: what happened, why it happened, and what to try next. Most ship the first, hint at the second, and forget the third. The fix is usually a single sentence longer.

Capture-flow check-list

  • [x] Pulled from Safari via Share Sheet
  • [x] OCR'd a whiteboard photo
  • [x] Dictated three voice memos walking to coffee
  • [ ] Imported the long PDF I was avoiding
  • [ ] Cleaned the inbox folder
python
# Tiny script that prints any URL's title.
import requests, re
def title(url: str) -> str:
    html = requests.get(url, timeout=5).text
    m = re.search(r"<title>(.*?)</title>", html, re.S | re.I)
    return m.group(1).strip() if m else url
print(title("https://memory.wiki"))

"The best note-taking system is the one you already have open." — every productivity post ever, and also true

flowchart LR
  Capture --> Organize
  Organize --> Use
  Use -.indispensability loop.-> Capture

Open questions

A good error message answers three questions: what happened, why it happened, and what to try next. Most ship the first, hint at the second, and forget the third. The fix is usually a single sentence longer.