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Dex Horthy

What Dex Horthy thinks about design

@dex-horthy · 26 positions · On ppll ↗

Founder of the agent company HumanLayer, author of the 12-factor agents principles, and the engineer who put the name "context engineering" on the practice.

Dex Horthy did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Dex Horthy on design. See everyone on design

3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Dex Horthy has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingLoops belong on codebase quality, not on shipping the features users want; we read all of the code, because program design is what decides whether a codebase stays changeable.

    Their wordsYou'll notice what I said was not use loops to ship the features that users want. We use loops to actually improve the codebase quality and we read all the code because we care about how it's architected and we care not just about the system architecture but what I would call the program design

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

  3. Our readingModels will not learn to write maintainable code from today’s benchmarks, because the cost of bad architecture cannot be measured by running the unit tests — it arrives three to six months later.

    benchmarkswritingsoftware quality

    Their wordsthe problem with training models on maintainability is like the cost function of bad architecture and bad program design can't be evaluated by running the unit test because it hits you 3 to 6 months later

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 11th of 26 in this recording

  5. Our readingThe IDE of the future has to be rethought from the ground up for agents, rather than being a text editor with an agents tab bolted on.

    developer tools

    Their wordsbasically the idea is like the IDE of the future needs to be rethought from the ground up for agents. And it might not even be a like I don't know a lot of editors kind of started with the text field and bolted on an agents tab.

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 25th of 26 in this recording