Boris Cherny on domain knowledge as infrastructure
Good articulation of why agent readiness is less about prompting tricks and more about operationalizing team knowledge into executable or at least machine-readable scaffolding.
Logged at IST: 2026-07-16 01:33 IST
What it is: Boris Cherny arguing that agent-era engineering leverage still comes from automation, but now automation also includes encoded domain knowledge like CLAUDE.md, review rules, skills, and docs
Gist: The core claim is that the old highest-leverage engineering move, turning recurring work into infrastructure, matters even more with agents. Better lint rules, CI steps, tests, routines, and DevX speed up both humans and agent swarms. More importantly, domain knowledge that used to live in people’s heads now needs to be encoded as machine-usable infrastructure so newcomers, non-engineers, and agents can contribute productively without hidden tribal context.
Newsletter angle: Good articulation of why agent readiness is less about prompting tricks and more about operationalizing team knowledge into executable or at least machine-readable scaffolding.