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.
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Edition 4
2026-05-11Retitled 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 retitled36Time to scan TOC~6s → ~2sVoice lines lost0 -
Edition 3.5
2026-05-09Repo 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 visibilityPUBLIC → PRIVATESite downtime during flip~3 min (Pages re-enable required)Surfaces disabled4 -
Edition 3
2026-05-07Closed 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) -
Storytelling layer
2026-05-0836 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+5Skills surfaced62Sensitive paths read0 (Cowork showcase derived from published chapters) -
Edition 2
2026-05-07Fixed 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
Chapters24 → 30Widgets8 → 12Pages32 → 38 -
Edition 1
2026-05-07The 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~43,000Parallel agents in chapter migration4Wall-clock for full Edition 1 build~3 hoursDist size1.4 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.