Changelog

The list rewrites itself.

Every edition is a real ship — new chapters, new widgets, sharper transitions, fewer footguns. Returning readers can see what changed since their last visit. Newcomers can see how the book grew.

Latest: Edition 4 · 2026-05-11 — Retitled for navigation. Voice survived.

  1. Edition 4

    2026-05-11

    Retitled for navigation. Voice survived.

    • All 36 chapter titles rewritten — topical-primary, with question form on 9 chapters where intent shape beats subject shape
    • Old hype titles preserved as subtitles ("The Day I Killed My Tabs" now sits below "AI as an Operating System")
    • Cmd-K resolves "cron" → Scheduled Tasks, "browser" → Browser Agents with Playwright, "permissions" → When to Skip Permissions
    • scripts/apply-titles.py — atomic re-runnable rewrite of all 36 frontmatters + chapters.ts. Re-run any time the map changes.
    Chapters retitled
    36
    Time to scan TOC
    ~6s → ~2s
    Voice lines lost
    0
  2. Edition 3.5

    2026-05-09

    Repo flipped private. Site stayed public.

    • Repo visibility flipped to PRIVATE (Belkins on GH Pro tier)
    • Issues, Wiki, Projects, Discussions disabled — attack surface reduced
    • SECURITY.md committed with vulnerability reporting + ops rules
    • .gitignore hardened — .pem, .key, .aws/, .kube/, secrets/, .vercel
    • Vercel fallback config committed — dual-target astro.config.mjs reads DEPLOY_TARGET env
    • Vercel security headers baked (HSTS, X-Frame-Options DENY, X-Content-Type-Options, Permissions-Policy)
    Repo visibility
    PUBLIC → PRIVATE
    Site downtime during flip
    ~3 min (Pages re-enable required)
    Surfaces disabled
    4
  3. Edition 3

    2026-05-07

    Closed the original brief. Six new chapters, two new pages.

    • Ch 31 — The Stages: Ideation → Foundation → Creation → Polishing → Security → Deploy
    • Ch 32 — How to Build Rick (OpenClaw, NemoClaw, Hermes archetypes)
    • Ch 33 — Browser Agents with Playwright (login, click, scrape, post)
    • Ch 34 — Persona Agents and the Four NEVERs
    • Ch 35 — Codex × Claude Code (day shift, night shift)
    • Ch 36 — Beyond Claude Code (CrewAI, LangGraph, SDK)
    • StagesFlow widget (Ch 31) — six clickable stages with artifact + ready test + failure mode
    • ArchetypePicker widget (Ch 32) — 3-question intake → recommended Rick archetype + install command
    • /day-zero — literal first 30 minutes with 12 localStorage-persisted checkboxes
    • /sections — chapters grouped by General / Claude / Security / AI Agents / Building / Team+Tier
    Chapters added
    +6 (30 → 36)
    Widgets added
    +2 (12 → 14)
    New pages
    +2 (/day-zero, /sections)
  4. Storytelling layer

    2026-05-08

    36 islands became one six-act journey.

    • /how-to-read — ~1,100-word prologue. Who this is for, the reframe, the journey, three ways to use the book.
    • /journey — 6-part narrative arc (Reframe → Memory → Workshop → Discipline → Building → Frontier)
    • /questions — 18 questions Vlad answers most weeks, each with short answer + chapter pointers
    • Part pill on every chapter hero — readers know where they are in the arc
    • Chapter footer transitions detect part boundaries: "Next: Part III — The Workshop →"
    • /showcase — auto-extracted from ~/.claude/: 62 skills + 32 custom agents + 12 plugins, categorized + searchable
    • /cowork-setup — sanitized: 12 connector categories + 8 scheduled-task patterns + day-shape timeline. Zero local-data scan.
    Reader-facing pages added
    +5
    Skills surfaced
    62
    Sensitive paths read
    0 (Cowork showcase derived from published chapters)
  5. Edition 2

    2026-05-07

    Fixed the muscles. Wrote the spine.

    • 6 new chapters (Ch 25-30): Evals, Team Adoption, Voice Agents, Failure Receipts, Cost Economics, Anthropic SDK Direct
    • 4 new widgets: TokenBurnCalculator (Ch 2/29), TempAgencyLoop (Ch 3), VaultGraphPreview (Ch 4), HookEventTimeline (Ch 16)
    • 12 a11y + UX patches: glossary popovers via Radix (no more navigate-away mid-read), focus rings, skip-to-content, paper contrast fix, 17px body on ≥640px, anchor links on H2/H3, print stylesheet
    • 10 new operator prompts added to /resources: deal post-mortem, hire screen, model migration, board update, mentee prep, RFP triage, kill decision, customer-call synthesis, writing-filter, Tuesday-9am triage
    • ResumeReading pill on landing (localStorage-driven)
    • Substack subscribe iframe in footer
    • Sharper "Most readers go here next" copy in chapter footer
    Chapters
    24 → 30
    Widgets
    8 → 12
    Pages
    32 → 38
  6. Edition 1

    2026-05-07

    The book became an artifact.

    • 24 chapters migrated from .docx into MDX (4 parallel agents, partitioned by chapter range)
    • 8 interactive widgets: StackSelector, SwarmVisualizer, CronBuilder, ModePicker, SkillComposer, ConnectorMap, PermissionSimulator, TierListBuilder
    • Cmd-K command palette + dark theme + view transitions + reading progress bar
    • Resources page with copy-paste vault library: CLAUDE.md skeleton, .mcp.json examples, hook scripts, SKILL templates, 5 reusable prompts
    • Printable cheat sheet (Ch 14, @media print styled)
    • 30-day plan generator (3 intake questions → custom 30-day calendar, .ics + markdown export)
    • Drag-and-drop tier list builder with shareable URL hash
    • GitHub Pages deployment via Actions; live in ~50s per push
    Source words migrated
    ~43,000
    Parallel agents in chapter migration
    4
    Wall-clock for full Edition 1 build
    ~3 hours
    Dist size
    1.4 MB / 32 pages
The stack will move. The voice won't. New editions ship when the book gets demonstrably better — a missing chapter lands, a footgun gets caught, a widget earns its slot. If you spotted something that should change, the inbox is open: vladsnewsletter.com.
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Edition 3 lands when this list says it does.

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