The chapter map, proposed

AGen ZX: who this book is for, and what it is for drafting

Two generations, Z entering the workforce and X the subject-matter experts starting companies, often their parents; together Gen ZX, back to the ZX Spectrum; one objective, that by the end you have started a company; and the measure, the companies created.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service), Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• The reader this book is for is the founder, and its objective is that by the end you have started a company accepted
• Two generations, Z and X, together Gen ZX: back to the ZX Spectrum accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Generation Z, Introduction

AYou are lucky to be here drafting

Wonder, not fear: you are starting out in the biggest change of your career, while the pieces are still landing. Spoken to both generations.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for zara · topics: Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• The book opens with wonder, not fear and not technologies accepted
• Whoever reads this now is lucky to be here accepted
• Ignore the doom: nobody knows what happens next accepted
• Seven transformations, lived through: the Spectrum, the BBS, the internet, the mobile phone, the cloud, the apps, AI candidate
• Technology can finally work for you accepted
• Read it on paper, with a pen accepted
• The fear, impostor syndrome and anxiety about AI among young people candidate
• The immediate connection between a creator and what they make is the wonder the book opens with accepted
• Purpose, and optimism: Sinek for why, Kevin Kelly for what technology wants accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Introduction, Generation Z, The Zone, BBS and Modems, Dopamine

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AEverything is connected: graphs drafting

A graph is a network, not a diagram: the detective's board, a map as a graph with positions, graphs of graphs, provenance as a graph, and start anywhere.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for zara · topics: Graphs, memory and your future self

• A graph is a network of nodes and edges, not a diagram accepted
• The whodunit is the easiest way in: the detective's board is a graph accepted
• A map is a graph with positions; a Wardley map is a graph with context accepted
• Graphs nest, and so does the world: groups of groups are the abstraction layers we think in accepted
• You can start anywhere: it matters that you start, and get movement accepted
• The 2018 book was already there: Dot Language and AST were graphs without saying so candidate
• Source code is a fractal semantic graph, and a review should read every layer of it candidate

Answers the 2018 files: graphs, Dot Language, AST (Abstract Syntax Tree)

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AWhere do you land? drafting

Maps before names, and the first thing to work out is your centre of gravity: explorer, villager or town planner.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for tomas · topics: Explorers, villagers and town planners (Wardley's frame)

• The opportunity is in old jobs too: the ones that never scaled, and now can candidate
• Wardley maps run through the whole book, shown before they are named accepted
• The four stages of evolution are not only for activities accepted
• Explorer, villager, town planner: personalities, each with a centre of gravity accepted
• Each centre of gravity needs different skills and a different learning path accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Are you a pionner, Settlers or Town Planners

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AConnect the dots backwards drafting

Your path only makes sense looking back; learning is a lifelong skill you can finally shape to how you think; read this on paper.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for priya · topics: Direction is the scarce skill: the place of highest leverage, knowing when to stop, starting without knowing the end, Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• Learning can be made for you, not for a mythical average student accepted
• Think with the AI; never delegate your thinking to it accepted
• A path only makes sense looking back accepted
• The edge is now multidisciplinary accepted
• We teach maths, and music, as if to make people hate them accepted
• Generative AI lets you explore and communicate again accepted
• By reading this you are already in a small minority, and geography no longer decides accepted
• Flow and deliberate practice are the science of the zone and of learning accepted
• Know where your ideas come from: keep your own register accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Learning, Books, Pen and Paper, Love Maths, Thinking as programmer

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AWhat generative AI is drafting

AI is a huge bucket; this book is about the kind that generates; how a language model works in plain words, why a better prompt helps, where hallucinations come from, and where Dinis was corrected.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for zara · topics: Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• This book is about generative AI, not AI in general accepted
• A language model predicts the next word from a rich picture of how things connect; that is why a better prompt helps, and where hallucinations come from accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Machine Learning and AI

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

ALenses, roles and loops drafting

The second half of the explanation: a prompt is a lens, a role is a model with a description, an agent is a loop with a goal, tools are requests the model sends back, the model remembers nothing, long chats are compressed, so work in focused threads.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for zara · topics: How to work with agents: briefs, voice, one shared state, Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• A prompt is a lens: translating into another language is, to a model, the same as explaining for a teenager or a doctor accepted
• A role is a model with a description and a question; an agent is that role on a loop with a goal accepted
• Tools changed everything: the model answers with a request, the program runs it, and the result goes into the next request accepted
• The model remembers nothing between requests: every request carries the whole conversation, which is why there is a context window accepted
• Long chats are compressed into a lower-resolution summary, so details drop out: work in many focused threads with named agents accepted

Answers the 2018 files: Machine Learning and AI

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AEveryone who can brief an agent is a developer drafting

The definition widened, and so did the door; here is what the briefing-only developer still cannot do.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for priya · topics: Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• Become a developer, because craftspeople make their own tools accepted
• Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now accepted

Answers the 2018 files: STEM Tech Stack, Scratch, Thinking as programmer

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EExplorer coding, not vibe coding, and the handover drafting

What people call vibe coding is exploration, and the word should say so: build to find out, then hand it to the people who will make it something others rely on; the founder's way of building, and both halves.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for marta · topics: Explorers, villagers and town planners (Wardley's frame)

• Explorer coding: what people call vibe coding, done as exploring candidate
• The deployment gap is a handover, and the prototype is the best brief candidate
• Design, the design canon and Christopher Alexander: the villager's and town planner's craft accepted
• Gen ZX are developers: coding with agents the explorer coding way, which is what vibe coding should be called accepted

Answers the 2018 files: REPL, Legacy Applications, Refactoring

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AHired for the workflow drafting

The one competitive advantage in 2026 is running agentic workflows; you are more technical than you think; it starts with the application.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for zara · topics: Getting the job: hired for the workflow, act as the job you want

• The one competitive advantage in 2026 is running agentic workflows candidate
• You are more technical than you think candidate
• The edge starts with the application candidate

Answers the 2018 files: How to get a job, Machine Learning and AI, Impostor Syndrome

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AAct as the job you want drafting

If you are looking for a job you have time: do the job in public before you have it, make it linkable, put your CV online. The 2018 Be a founder as then and now: act like a founder then, be one now.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for tomas · topics: Getting the job: hired for the workflow, act as the job you want, Publish, publish, publish: your own newsroom

• Act as the job you want: do the job in public before you have it candidate
• Your CV should be online, with links to the work candidate
• How a job hunt works in 2026: interviews, take-home tests with AI, what a junior role looks like candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Your CV, Github, LinkedIn, Blogs, Mentors, Upwork, Bug Bounties

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EPublish, publish, publish: your own newsroom drafting

A publishing loop you can copy on day one; small finished pieces; an article behind every answer.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for tomas · topics: Publish, publish, publish: your own newsroom

• Publish, publish, publish: your own newsroom candidate
• Write it once, link it many times; every part buys the next candidate
• The voice is not a setting: a corpus, a memo, a short list of rules, and a reader who corrects candidate
• Speak it, do not type it: a memo carries how you got there, a brief only what to write candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Publish, Publish Publish, Hugo, leanpub, Amazon Press Release

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AYour first workspace drafting

From a spreadsheet to a folder per person, in an afternoon; drafts never send; and why your agents should not run on your laptop.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for priya · topics: Your first workspace: from one Claude Project to a team of agents, safely, Security for the agent era: least code, supply chain, secrets, learning to hack

• Your first workspace: from a spreadsheet to a folder per person, drafts never send candidate
• Why your agents should not run on your laptop candidate

Answers the 2018 files: MVP for Gen Z Dev, Slack and ChatOps, Automate your Workflows, Don't touch production

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

VHow to work with agents drafting

An agent is a session with a focus; the brief is the unit of work; one shared state across voice, chat and phone; and the trap of a rule per mistake.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for sam · topics: How to work with agents: briefs, voice, one shared state

• An agent is a session with a focus: one session per topic, named, with a role file candidate
• The brief is the unit of work, and writing it as an article forces the research candidate
• Omnichannel programming: brief by voice, review on the phone, one shared state candidate
• Every mistake added a rule: the complexity trap of the agent operator candidate
• A wording correction is made once and enforced; a content correction is new thinking every time candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Workflows, Agile and Kanban, IDE, Design, Changes

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

TDirection is the scarce skill drafting

When anyone can build, choosing what to build, when to stop, and where a person belongs is what gets paid for; agents decide, people answer.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for sam · topics: Direction is the scarce skill: the place of highest leverage, knowing when to stop, starting without knowing the end, Where a person belongs: one-way doors, two-way doors and blast radius

• Direction is the scarce skill: the place of highest leverage candidate
• Knowing when to stop is most of seniority candidate
• One-way and two-way doors, blast radius, and where a person belongs candidate
• Agents decide, people answer candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Deadlines, Start with Why, Brain, One way and two way doors, Chaos Engineering, Civic Responsibility

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

VFacts, evidence and the record drafting

Make fact-based decisions, as the cover says: count rather than remember, let the record check you, distrust self-reports.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for sam · topics: Facts, evidence and the record

• Make fact-based decisions: think out loud and let the record check you candidate
• Ask to be corrected, and print the corrections with their sources accepted
• Question everything: a claim earns its status by being refutable accepted
• Questioning, and asking for the evidence, is one of the most important skills now accepted
• They care about privacy; Snapchat's best feature was that images disappear candidate
• Following a rabbit hole is now a prompt away; build the agents and tools that find where things come from accepted
• Provenance and explainability are how you disagree rationally accepted
• Managing information so that decisions can be made is what work is candidate
• What cost hundreds of thousands of pounds is now a brief and a feedback loop candidate
• Be the best-prepared person in the room: briefings, pre-briefings, follow-ups candidate
• Provenance is a graph: where a claim came from is a chain of edges back to its source accepted
• A graph is trustworthy not because it is right but because it is where users, experts and tests can correct it candidate
• Stale pages become false memories, so a memory must say where each thing came from and name its own errors candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Facts, Feedback loops, Being criticized is an privilege

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EBe a founder: the expert founders drafting

Execution just got cheap: the person who spent twenty years inside a problem can now build the first version of the answer themselves, with agents; a third of new US startups have a single founder, and the fastest-growing founders average 45.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• Be a founder: the expert can build first now, and the test is whether they miss it candidate
• There is a company in this: a code review that reads every layer, for somebody to build candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Be a founder

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EShip it, and see if they miss it drafting

Not to plan, not to pitch, not to architect: ship; give it away, and if they do not miss it, try again; the miss-it test applied to your users and to yourself.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service), Shipped means the user has it: tests, CI and going slow to go fast

• no idea placed yet

Answers the 2018 files: Be a founder

VPrice it, then give it away drafting

Free is never free for the other side: set the price first, then the early-access offer; pay after the value, and let what a page was worth set its price.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• no idea placed yet

VSell drafting

Selling a service before the product, a marketplace of people, the SaaS buyer's inertia, and due diligence done by sending an agent rather than a spreadsheet.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for sam · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• no idea placed yet

TFund it, or do not drafting

Profitable before raising; sell founder shares or lend rather than issue; the controllable founder and what investors buy; the company you keep control of.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• no idea placed yet

TThe company itself: the UK, Portugal, Lithuania, the European Union drafting

How to actually do it, for real: a limited company in the UK, the case for Lithuania, Portugal and what it costs to run a small company there, the EU and its programmes, the cloud providers and the startup programmes that exist right now; from experience, not advice.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service), Civic responsibility: hacking a country, sovereignty, your language

• How to actually do it: a limited company in the UK, Lithuania, Portugal, the European Union, the cloud providers and the programmes accepted

VServerless, for real drafting

If it bills you by the hour when nobody is using it, it is not serverless: no servers of yours with logic in them, no database, the file system as the database, a client-side product on static hosting, and a billing model to match; a founder with no servers has nothing to run at three in the morning.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for marta · topics: Building blocks: cloud, serverless, free models, git and CI

• Building blocks: cloud as Lego, free models with your own key, git as a standard candidate
• The file system is the database: load, extract, transform, save, and keep every intermediate as a file candidate
• No server, by design: retire the back end too, and keep only commodity servers candidate
• Ship now, and ship your startup serverless: no servers of yours, no database, client side, with privacy by design and control of your agents accepted

Answers the 2018 files: AWS, Serverless, Micro-Services, Git, Docker

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

TPrivacy by design: SG/Send, sgit, and the value of constraints drafting

Data encrypted on the user's device, on a server that cannot read it; zero-knowledge vaults and where the keys live; the constraint that designs the product and what it does not remove (GDPR); European sovereignty as moving the cloud, not the code.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for marta · topics: Security for the agent era: least code, supply chain, secrets, learning to hack, Building blocks: cloud, serverless, free models, git and CI

• no idea placed yet

Answers the 2018 files: Security

TControlling your agent: RiskMandate drafting

Mandate, reach and the gap; hope versus enforcement; code is a liability; secrets never in the chat; learning to hack is still how you learn. A policy beside the prompt; the behaviour policy is the business logic; the ten questions.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for sam · topics: Controlling your agent: mandate, reach and hope versus enforcement, Security for the agent era: least code, supply chain, secrets, learning to hack

• Mandate, reach and the gap: hope versus enforcement candidate
• Code is a liability; the future is the smallest code that does the job candidate
• Learning to hack is still how you learn how things work: draw the line where the attacker is candidate
• The secret goes from the drop into the tool, never into the chat candidate
• Security experience is what lets you ship with known gaps: list them, match them to the reader, say what would change the call candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Threat Modeling, 3rd-party-modules, Security creates better developers, Learn to Hack, Pointers, Strings should be banned, The future needs you

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AOpen source drafting

Nobody can lock you in; the fork next door; your first pull request. Open source is not free: who pays for what your startup runs on.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for tomas · topics: Open source: contribute, fork, and why it protects everyone

• Open source means nobody can lock you in: the fork next door candidate
• Your first pull request: open source is still the newcomer's best door candidate
• Open source, community and OWASP: working and getting hired in the open, with the names behind it accepted
• Open source is why it is easy to throw your own technology away candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Open Source, Creative Commons, GitHub Flow

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

VShipped means the user has it drafting

Green does not mean live; tests that never run are not tests; go slow to go fast; five people who do not exist.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for sam · topics: Shipped means the user has it: tests, CI and going slow to go fast

• Shipped means the user has it: green does not mean live, go slow to go fast candidate

Answers the 2018 files: CI Testing, Continuous Integration, TDD (Test-Driven Development), DevOps

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

AGraphs, memory and your future self drafting

Memory is context management: many memories, fractal, published and shared; maintain knowledge rather than perfect it; keep your work linkable and backed up for the person you will be.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for priya · topics: Graphs, memory and your future self

• Think in graphs: knowledge that maintains itself, and your future self candidate
• Memory is not a spectator sport: it is context management, many memories, fractal, published and shared candidate
• Publish, and your published work becomes your agents' memory, with a URL for every claim candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Future Self, Backup your life, Dot Language, Recursive Functions

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

ACivic responsibility drafting

To hack means to solve problems; small countries can lead now that everyone can build; sovereignty is the ability to move. The EU and judo for small countries.

Centre of gravity: all three · written first for guide · topics: Civic responsibility: hacking a country, sovereignty, your language

• Civic responsibility: to hack means to solve problems, and small countries can lead now candidate

Answers the 2018 files: Civic Responsibility

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EAn agentic workflow from zero drafting

One afternoon, five exercises: from a spreadsheet to a folder per person, and a first agent that works for you.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: Your first workspace: from one Claude Project to a team of agents, safely

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EYour first graph, built by hand drafting

Nodes, edges as verbs, and a first graph of something you know, after chapter 15 of Fractal Semantic Graphs.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: Graphs, memory and your future self

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EOne idea, five lenses drafting

Explain one idea of your own choice for a teenager, a musician, a doctor, a football fan and in another language; see the lens, not the magic.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: Everyone who can brief an agent is a developer now

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EA tiny agent loop drafting

A page of code, or a no-code version, that shows the loop and one tool call: do the task, are we done, go round again.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: How to work with agents: briefs, voice, one shared state

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EImages, infographics and storyboards, drawn by code drafting

A storyboard is data; the picture is drawn in the browser; the quote is checked against its source.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: Publish, publish, publish: your own newsroom

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

VMeeting briefs and follow-ups drafting

A briefing for you, a briefing on who you meet, a follow-up after: the best-prepared person in the room, every time.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for sam · topics: How to work with agents: briefs, voice, one shared state

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

VYour own newsroom and inbox drafting

Voice memo in, a checked site out; the email workflow replicated: publishing and communication that scale.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for priya · topics: Publish, publish, publish: your own newsroom, Your first workspace: from one Claude Project to a team of agents, safely

• no idea placed yet

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate

EForm your company drafting

The steps to a limited company in the UK, and the first look at Lithuania and Portugal; what to decide before you register.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• no idea placed yet

EThe credits and programmes, 2026 drafting

The startup cloud credits and programmes as they stand this year (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic), what each asks for, and how long they last.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service), Building blocks: cloud, serverless, free models, git and CI

• no idea placed yet

VYour first price and your first ten customers drafting

Set the price, make the early-access offer, ask after the value, and find ten people who would miss it.

Centre of gravity: villager · written first for marta · topics: Be a founder (or a one-person service)

• no idea placed yet

EShip a serverless product in a weekend drafting

Static hosting, a vault for the data, chat on a static site, a payment link and no server of yours: the smallest product that a stranger can pay for.

Centre of gravity: explorer · written first for zara · topics: Building blocks: cloud, serverless, free models, git and CI, Shipped means the user has it: tests, CI and going slow to go fast

• no idea placed yet

THow this book was made, and what you made drafting

The repository and the vault, the roles, the articles as briefs, the decisions, the graph, the loop; co-written with Claude, and the ratio shown. The measure: the companies created from it, and how to tell us.

Centre of gravity: town planner · written first for guide · topics: How this book was made (the last part)

• The repository holds the official versions; the vault holds the working versions accepted
• Co-written with Claude, credited, with the ratio shown; short and punchy; every paragraph knows what it is accepted
• A personal edition, assembled by an agent, paid for as it is read deferred
• Read, comment, decide: the loop that turns Dinis's decisions into versions accepted
• An article is how to brief an agent, and the roles keep their names accepted
• Release the book we already released: every format from one source accepted
• One board for the work, one inventory of everything unfinished accepted
• Start from the storyline, as storyboards drawn by code accepted
• Everything we do here becomes a graph: ideas as nodes, provenance as edges, state on every node accepted
• The name: Generation ZX Developers (GenAI Startup Edition) accepted
• A hands-on part, dated 2026 and renewed each year accepted
• Do the book in release mode: a whole release candidate from the first list, then rounds, then the next candidate accepted
• After rc1, nothing enters the book without a hearing: an advocate, a cutter, the readers, a checker, the editor, and Dinis decides accepted
• Every verdict is recorded with its reason, and a general reason becomes a precedent that decides the next case without a hearing accepted
• A release candidate's working copy is in the vault; the site renders a frozen snapshot of it, marked, never official accepted
• The book is measured by how many companies are created from it, and builds a community of the people who tell us accepted
• The book is 200 printed pages or more; short and punchy stays the rule for chapters, not for the book accepted
• A change decided by precedent goes on a list Dinis can overturn, and Dinis reads the diffs of the book accepted
• The hands-on part is inside the book, dated, in the release candidate accepted

Answers the 2018 files: How this book is being created, GitHub Issues

Drafted: read the chapter in the release candidate