Retrieval-Augmented Generation explained in plain English. The librarian analogy, the five steps, a working Python example you can run in 50 lines, and the mistakes every beginner makes the first time.
Model Context Protocol turns your internal services into something an agent can call without bespoke glue. What MCP actually is, what it costs to expose one well, and the patterns that hold up when the caller is an LLM instead of a UI.
Claude Code, Cursor, Antigravity — the tools are real, the productivity claims are mostly real, and the new skill is shaping work for an agent rather than doing it. A senior engineer's field notes on what changed and what didn't.
Retrieval-augmented generation has been wrapped in enough mystique to obscure that it's mostly an ETL problem. What the pipeline actually looks like, where the real engineering happens, and the failure modes that have nothing to do with the model.
Agents produce code that compiles, passes tests, and is sometimes wrong in ways that no compiler or unit test catches. What an evaluation layer in CI looks like — beyond lint and test — when half the PRs were drafted by a model.