GitHub Octoverse 2026: 40% of pull requests now start with an agent
GitHub's Octoverse 2026 shows 40% of pull requests now start with an AI agent. The key numbers, and what the teams where it works do differently.
· 6 min
Productivity
11 articles
Six tasks I hand to AI, and three I don't
Tests, legacy code, debugging, review, refactoring and SQL: what I ask the AI for in each, what I watch for, and how I check it in minutes. And the three decisions I never hand off, with a real case from this month that shows why.
· 9 min
What makes a developer valuable today: what the data and this month's debate say
Developer job postings are rising again, but not for everyone, and interviews are dropping algorithm puzzles. What October's data shows, what was debated this week, and six skills you can start practicing tomorrow.
· 7 min
Coding agents add 30% more code, but not more shipped work
A Harvard study of 718 companies measured what happens when a team adopts coding agents: people write 30% more code, but no more work gets finished. The time is lost in code review. What the data says and what you can do before you send a change.
· 8 min
How to manage context when coding with AI
What a language model's context is, why it fills up without you noticing, and four simple habits so the agent doesn't forget what you asked. Nothing to set up: it works from your next conversation.
· 7 min
Choosing a coding agent is no longer choosing a model
Claude Code, Codex, Copilot and Cursor now run the same frontier models and cost roughly the same. What separates them is the harness: how much you supervise, how much you delegate, and where it runs. How to choose by the work.
· 7 min
Your repo is not ready for an AI agent
Why the agent hands you code it never verified, and the six things about the repository to fix so it can check its own work. None of them is a rewrite and none takes more than an afternoon.
· 8 min
Claude Skills, from the basics to building your own
A Skill is a folder with instructions that Claude reads on its own when it's needed, without taking up context until then. How to use the ones that already exist, how to build your own step by step, and what to check before installing someone else's.
· 8 min
You use four Claude Code commands. Ten are missing
Ten commands that solve the same four problems you already have: the context that fills up, the setup you never did, the change that has to be undone, and the work that does not fit in one turn.
· 8 min
Three tools you need to know exist for coding with Claude
Three free tools you need to know exist. One imposes a way of working before any code gets written. Another shows you where your tokens go. The third gives it design judgement. What each one does, how to install them, and what they cost you.
· 7 min
Coding with AI without overspending
What you actually pay for when using a language model to write code, why the bill almost never comes from the model you picked, and the practices that cut spending most without lowering the quality of the result.
· 7 min