tcash.ca · field dispatches
№ 27 — coding agents & the HTML question
fredericton, nb publishing_
tcash.ca · est. 2026 · a working blog

TCASH.ca

Files dispatches from inside the agent loop — not the changelog.

I build software with coding agents all day — Claude Code, Codex, Kimi — and write down what holds and what folds. The standing position: most of what an agent hands back is better as HTML than markdown. A plan you can read, a review you can mark up, a diagram that's actually a diagram.

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§ 01 — Latest

The one up top

New this week
27
2026·05·19
Reports · HTML · workflow

Stop handing me markdown your agent had to fight

Six months of defaulting to HTML for plans, reviews, and diagrams. What actually changed in the loop, what broke when I tried to round-trip edits, and the one carve-out I still reach for when a reply is genuinely three sentences long.

A reply to two essays. Builds on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML” by Thariq (@trq212, Claude Code team) and takes the review-and-versioning objection from “The Unreasonable Ineffectiveness of HTML” by Kurtis Redux seriously — then answers it.

Dispatch record
Filed19 May 2026
BeatReports
Length14 min
StatusPosted
Read the dispatch ▸
§ 02 — Colophon

From the desk

Who's writing, and what's on the bench

Hi — I'm TCash. I ship with coding agents for a living and use this place to think out loud about the parts that don't make it into anyone's docs: where the loop stalls, which corrections actually unstick it, and why the artifact that survives the session is the one that lets the work compound.

Every dispatch here ships as a single, self-contained HTML file you can open on a double-click — which is the whole argument, really. The nine surfaces where HTML beats markdown come from Thariq's “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML”; the beats below are just where my own work keeps landing.

No hot takes I can't run in production. If a dispatch didn't survive contact with a real repo, it doesn't post.

— Filed by TCash · Fredericton, NB · night-watch hours
On the bench
RunningClaude Code against a deliberately 40-line CLAUDE.md
Readingthe dissent slate — Kurtis Redux, one more time
Buildinga single-file kanban editor I keep not finishing
WatchingKimi K2.6 pricing vs. where it folds
New here? Start with these
▸ Stop handing me markdown your agent had to fight ▸ Four moves for a stuck agent ▸ The CLAUDE.md I actually keep
Most of what your agent hands back wants to be a page, not a paragraph.
§ 03 — The Ledger

Recent dispatches

Newest first · filter by beat below
Showing 9 of 9 recent
14 MAY2026
The CLAUDE.md I actually keep

Twenty-one rules went in. Five survived contact with real work — and one of them was “write less here.”

Config9 min▸
06 MAY2026
Four moves for a stuck agent

When the loop stalls, I reach for the same four corrections, in order, before I touch the prompt.

Workflow7 min▸
28 APR2026
Annotated PR review, in one file

An HTML diff with the reviewer’s notes pinned in the margin beats a comment thread every single time.

Code Review6 min▸
19 APR2026
Kimi K2.6, two weeks in

Where the cheaper agent holds, where it folds, and how its prompting wants to be shaped differently.

Field Test11 min▸
10 APR2026
Reading like Karpathy

Treat the agent as a study partner, not a vending machine. A reading method that survives long sessions.

Research8 min▸
30 MAR2026
How OpenAI actually uses Codex

Notes from how a shop that ships every day delegates to its agents — and where the humans stay.

Field Notes10 min▸
22 MAR2026
Meta-prompting, the Garry Tan way

Ask the model to write the prompt before you write the task. Why the extra hop earns its keep.

Technique5 min▸
14 MAR2026
The seven crossings

Seven points where a human still has to step into the agent’s loop — and what each one costs you.

Essay12 min▸
05 MAR2026
Learning on the shop floor

Skill compounds where the work happens, not in the docs. A case for letting the agent watch you work.

Essay9 min▸
Archive — all 27 dispatches ▸
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