Field notes from the edge of the deploy.
Essays on forward-deployed engineering — open weights, typed decisions, ambient agents, and the quiet craft of making software land where the work actually is.
$ fde publish essays/001-the-threshold-is-the-product.md › drafting… ok › word count 2,200 › thresholds set ✓ shipped → /essays/the-threshold-is-the-product
Latest essays
All essaysThe Threshold Is the Product
Open weights made intelligence cheap. Jev made decisions typed. Instinct and Muse made agency ambient. So what exactly is the FDE’s job now?
Still in the field notebook.
The next essay is being written the way the first one was: deployed somewhere, read with suspicion.
Real field notes
Not thought-leadership. What the open-weights era, typed decisions, and ambient agents mean for the people who actually deploy them.
Taste-making, curated
The best of what’s worth reading around the internet, with one-line verdicts. A recurring feature in every essay.
Slow takes
Essays that take a position and sit with it. About monthly, when there’s something worth saying.
Get the next field note.
One essay, about once a month. Written by Thomas Baucom — half engineer, half anthropologist, deployed where the work actually is.