Co-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at Sentry. Joined Sentry as its founding engineer; builds hunk.dev and runs the DevTools Toronto meetup. Posts as @bentlegen.
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Each column is a stretch of time in which the same views came up; a new column starts when one appears or goes quiet. Quiet means nothing on it in our sources for that stretch, which is not the same as a change of mind; Dropped means they said they no longer hold it; tap the card for which claim and when. Revised means the view carries on but one of its claims was dropped. Each row is one view, in the same place all the way along. The number is how many claims in that stretch; we hold 1 in 2023, 2 in 2024, 4 in 2025, 16 in 2026.
Keep coding agents on a short leash: gate them, shape the work first, check what they touch
Their wordsyou get lulled into this false sense of security. But I've already experienced agents kind of like reason to themselves about why they gotta go and do something and seen, um, seen some bad effects of that. And I just, like, my position and the position of the company, for example, is we just, everything is gated. We don't just let agents go YOLO.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at Sentrywhat a PR review of AI code looks like for me: 1) does it do anything remotely dangerous
2) does it touch files I would reasonably expect it to
3) do the tests cover the expected behaviour
4) does it follow architecture convention
5) [spot check code for slop]↗@bentlegen on Xx.com · 5 Sept 2026
Their wordswhat a PR review of AI code looks like for me: 1) does it do anything remotely dangerous
2) does it touch files I would reasonably expect it to
3) do the tests cover the expected behaviour
4) does it follow architecture convention
5) [spot check code for slop]
Their wordsWhereas when you're, when you're ripping on just like a lower fidelity mock -ups that might be like 80 % fidelity that kind of tell you the shape, like you, it takes less tokens. The agent takes less time to generate it. It puts you on the better path going forward.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryIMO the job increasingly becomes translating what you're thinking to a form the agents/LLMs understand. The tools will improve, sure, but I wouldn't bet on a future where they know how to read your mind.↗@benv.ca on Blueskybsky.app · 23 Jul 2025
Their wordsIMO the job increasingly becomes translating what you're thinking to a form the agents/LLMs understand. The tools will improve, sure, but I wouldn't bet on a future where they know how to read your mind.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryThat uncovered many small issues and patched them - enough to feel like we were making progress - but it steered us away from the *real* problem There’s still no substitute for expertise↗@bentlegen on Xx.com · 5 Aug 2026
Their wordsThat uncovered many small issues and patched them - enough to feel like we were making progress - but it steered us away from the *real* problem There’s still no substitute for expertise
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryA pattern I'm seeing with AI debugging: it's easy to get stuck inside the model's search space. So you burn tokens & time chasing candidate fixes, while the real answer sits in context only you have ... but never explored, because you quietly surrendered your thinking.↗@benv.ca on Blueskybsky.app · 2 Jun 2026
Their wordsA pattern I'm seeing with AI debugging: it's easy to get stuck inside the model's search space. So you burn tokens & time chasing candidate fixes, while the real answer sits in context only you have ... but never explored, because you quietly surrendered your thinking.
Their wordsIt was a Cloudflare worker oddity. And you know what? There's no more Stack Overflow. There's no more people writing blog posts. There's no one writing, gee, I hit this painful problem with Cloudflare workers and here's how I solved it. So how does the agent index this?
Their wordsSo I guess I guess that's my like weird take, which is there's an underserved market for understanding. It is hard to market because it's like you can't really put like a dollar or like a metric on it in the same way that you can tokens.
Their wordsit does seem like long-term Ruby and Zig are dead. And what I mean is that if the LLMs are not choosing them over a long enough timeline, they're going to become like Louisiana French.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryFeels like the demand for OSS hasn't felt this low in a while: 1. People can just codegen what they want 2. Companies will use whatever gets them to market faster to capitalize on AI – if it's a black box so what↗@benv.ca on Blueskybsky.app · 18 Nov 2025
Their wordsFeels like the demand for OSS hasn't felt this low in a while: 1. People can just codegen what they want 2. Companies will use whatever gets them to market faster to capitalize on AI – if it's a black box so what
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryHate to say it, but the functional programmers were right. LLMs love code with explicit inputs/outputs and no side effects.↗@bentlegen on Xx.com · 15 Dec 2025
Their wordsHate to say it, but the functional programmers were right. LLMs love code with explicit inputs/outputs and no side effects.
Their wordsWell, look, we don't need 400 3-column agentic coding multiplexers. We don't need that. The primitives are the bigger unlock to what's possible than the AI coding.
Their wordsSo to me, I just look at that as to say like, that's the indicators that we are at the beginning. And there's probably still a lot more innovation to happen.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryI think React's single greatest accomplishment is that it convinced web developers to finally stop bending over backwards in trying to separate business and presentation logic on the client.↗@benv.ca on Blueskybsky.app · 23 May 2023
Their wordsI think React's single greatest accomplishment is that it convinced web developers to finally stop bending over backwards in trying to separate business and presentation logic on the client.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at SentryWhen SaaS products grow and the architecture starts to break down, two types of devs emerge: 1. Those who believe the system is beyond repair and needs to be totally rebuilt 2. Those who put their heads down and fix it one piece at a time I've only seen group #2 be successful.↗@benv.ca on Blueskybsky.app · 20 Dec 2024
Their wordsWhen SaaS products grow and the architecture starts to break down, two types of devs emerge: 1. Those who believe the system is beyond repair and needs to be totally rebuilt 2. Those who put their heads down and fix it one piece at a time I've only seen group #2 be successful.
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at Sentryto make *actually* good software, you have to use it a lot but many people are spending more time in their coding agents/factories than in the apps they're building - so they won't↗@bentlegen on Xx.com · 6 Sept 2026
Their wordsto make *actually* good software, you have to use it a lot but many people are spending more time in their coding agents/factories than in the apps they're building - so they won't
Ben VinegarCo-founder of Modem, and before it VP of Engineering at Sentrythis like fast fashion, like fast fashion of software is what we're experiencing right now. where people are building something and they're like, hey, look at this. And if they don't, like, if people don't use it, they throw it away and go and try to find some other flash in the pan thing. Folks, my advice to you is have some conviction and work on things a little bit longer.↗State of Agentic Coding #7 with Armin and Benyoutube.com · 12 Jun 2026 · 1:28:17 into the videoAll korrents from this video
Their wordsthis like fast fashion, like fast fashion of software is what we're experiencing right now. where people are building something and they're like, hey, look at this. And if they don't, like, if people don't use it, they throw it away and go and try to find some other flash in the pan thing. Folks, my advice to you is have some conviction and work on things a little bit longer.
Their wordsmy advice to people is like you know if you want to get into software um i actually encourage you to build open source software first and demonstrate that you can actually get anybody to use anything because it's really hard