The Velocity Lab

Dave's two AI assistants started talking to each other in Slack. Dave and Dan on one assistant backed by specialist agents, and why function and access define a specialist.

Show Notes

Episode Summary

Dave now runs two AI personal assistants, one for his life and one for App Vitals, and on the drive in he realized they had started talking to each other in Slack. Dave and Dan dig into what that says about where agents are headed: one assistant you talk to, backed by specialist agents that each own a narrow job and their own credentials.

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Key Topics

  • How Shipwright thinks about an "agent": a level above sub-agents, with memory, crons, skills and plugins
  • Two failed attempts at autonomous, KPI-driven PRD agents, and why the third try pulls the core agent out of Shipwright
  • Why Dave talks to his assistants by voice, and why a unique voice makes him trust it more
  • An assistant that reads the cloud bill and quota warnings every day, with read-only access and no secrets
  • Where to draw the line on an agent's scope: function and access as the two dimensions of a specialist
  • Why focused specialists keep cleaner memory than one assistant fielding a million requests a day

Notable Quotes

  • "Both my personal assistant and my App Vitals assistant are both in Slack, and now they are starting to communicate with each other."
  • "If I talk to something that has a unique voice, I trust it more."
  • "Function and access are the two differentiators for a specialized agent."

About The Velocity Lab

Dave O'Dell and Dan McAulay work inside engineering organizations every day helping them ship faster with AI. No hype, no BS — just what's working in the field.

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What is The Velocity Lab?

Dave O'Dell and Dan McAulay work inside engineering organizations every day, helping them ship faster with AI — not in theory, but inside their actual teams. Each week they share what they're seeing in the field: what's working, what isn't, and what most people are getting wrong. Covering Claude Code updates, AI-enabled SDLC acceleration, and personal AI agents. No hype, no BS.