Realtime multiplayer, automation, and you! — Idan Gazit, GitHub
The talk introduces two prototypes for future software development: Agentic Workflows and ACE. Agentic Workflows automates complex tasks like dependency upgrades (e.g., Astro 5 to Astro 7) by interpreting plain English instructions into a structured playbook, which is then executed as an action workflow. Crucially, it emphasizes that robust guardrails are defined deterministically in YAML front matter, not merely through prompting. ACE explores real-time multiplayer development in cloud microVMs, treating the shared surface (like Slack) as the primary interface for surfacing non-code facts and collaborative planning.
Key takeaways
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Automation via Plain English Playbooks
5:08
Agentic workflows translate simple natural language instructions (e.g., a message to a junior developer) into comprehensive playbooks that handle tasks like checking for new releases, reviewing changelogs, applying code changes, and creating pull requests.
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Guardrails Must Be Deterministic
6:46
Effective security requires defining guardrails (permissions, allowed tools, network destinations, safe outputs) deterministically in front matter (YAML), rather than relying on prompt instructions, which are susceptible to injection.
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Shifting Development Interface
12:40
The future of development involves iterating on direction and planning within a shared surface (like Slack/ACE), making the document itself—the 'truth'—a primary artifact, rather than solely relying on code.
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AI Augmentation is Not Typing
20:40
A longitudinal study found that hands-on keyboard typing accounts for only about 5% of a developer's time; AI must therefore help scale up the remaining 95% of work (e.g., system design, planning, and collaboration).