An illustrated survival guide to AI coding
Now they have names.
Meet the characters, creatures, and catastrophes of AI-assisted work. Three richly illustrated books. Two card decks. A shared language for building better software.
The books / Three volumes
From the pull request to the org chart to the agent fleet. Pick the world you work in. Each volume stands on its own.
01 / Start with the code
The original field guide: four developer classes, six monsters, twelve archetypes, and the interventions that hold the line against AI-generated slop.
Explore Volume I Try the free Volume I cheat sheet →
02 / Follow the organization
The organizational sequel: FinOps NPCs, vendor bards, and the monsters that live in the space between teams.
Explore Volume II Try the free Volume II cheat sheet →
03 / Operate the agents
The production volume: operator roles, misbehaving agents, and the countermoves that keep agent fleets operable.
Explore Volume III Try the free Volume III cheat sheet →Open the field guide
Illustrations worth lingering over. Patterns you’ll recognize immediately. Practical ways to change what happens next.
01 / Inside Volume I The Scope Creep KrakenExpand ↗
03 / Inside Volume III Agents gone sidewaysExpand ↗
You may have met already
Name the pattern. Laugh about it together. Then have the conversation that actually helps.
The characterTwo hundred lines before lunch. Understanding them can wait.
Meet the Fighter ↗
The monsterThe code is here. The person who understands it isn’t.
Meet the Intern ↗
The organizational NPCA magnificent demo. A slightly different reality.
Meet the Bard ↗
The runtime monsterOne confident invention becomes everyone else’s starting point.
Meet the Hydra ↗
The card decks / Take it to the table
Pick a card that feels familiar. Share one example from your team’s work. Use the matching book to understand the pattern, then choose a countermove, an owner, and a date to check back. You can start before anyone has read the book.
Get a Volume I or II digital book and its matching physical deck for $19.99. Each kit includes EPUB + PDF and the deck; shipping is extra.
Poker-sized physical cards. Prices in USD; shipping calculated at checkout. Already have the books? Buy a deck on its own.
Three books / Three free cheat sheets
Choose your field kit and join Tim’s newsletter. Practical checklists, illustrated monsters, and a useful first step into each book. Download immediately.
Volume I / For developers & code reviewers
Review the code, name the failure mode, and make the next pull request better.
Get the Volume I cheat sheet A companion to the Volume I book →
Volume II / For team leads & engineering managers
Make ownership, cost, and evidence part of the conversation before the rollout.
Get the Volume II cheat sheet A companion to the Volume II book →
Volume III / For agent builders & operators
Set the boundaries, watch the run, and know how to stop and recover.
Get the Volume III cheat sheet A companion to the Volume III book →A little reconnaissance
Twelve real-world trade-offs. Find your working-style mix, the evidence behind it, and one thing to try next.
Take the quiz →02 / Your codebase inspectionSeparate hunches from evidence. Build a codebase field report you can revisit after your next release.
Find your monster →03 / The interactive guideTalk to the book’s eager, slightly hollow assistant about your next encounter.
Open the conversation →My Field Guide / Your reader account
Your assessment history. Your private notes. The patterns you’re investigating and the experiments you’re trying. Build a field guide that gets more useful every time you return.
Start your field guide