# Building in the Open

> Working notes from running an AI-accelerated shop of one: the discipline, the tooling, and what it teaches about moving knowing.

Source: https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/



## In this section
- [A login double-submit race, and the test layers that let an LLM fix it safely](https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/login-double-submit-and-the-test-layers/index.md): A mystery bounce on an OTP login, chased end to end: probing the error, building a mock to recreate it, red-bar tests, a two-layer fix, adversarial critic passes, and the CI gate. The three-line fix is the least of it. The discipline around the model is what actually solved it.
- [When you remove a feature, invert its tests. Don't skip them.](https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/when-you-remove-a-feature-invert-its-tests/index.md): Deleting a feature is a one-line change. Deciding what to do with the dozen tests that now fail is the real question, and the obvious answer is the wrong one. A reverse-TDD pass that keeps the suite honest about what is now true, and why it matters more once a model is doing the deleting.
- [We Always Finish Each Other's ____](https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/we-always-finish-each-others/index.md): The blank always fills with the most likely word. Prompt engineering is the plain act of telling a long enough story that the word you wanted becomes the likely one. You have done it since you learned to talk.
- [Without Code Journals, Your AI Will Fail You](https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/without-code-journals-your-ai-will-fail-you/index.md): A test proves the code still works. Only the journal remembers why you built it that way, and the why is the part your AI, and next-week you, cannot reconstruct.

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This is the plain-markdown twin of https://iambenschmidt.com/essays/building-in-the-open/. The whole site offers one: append index.md to any page URL. Index for agents: https://iambenschmidt.com/llms.txt