Blog

Thoughts on AI, technology, and innovation

Harness Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide to the Backbone of Modern Industry

A deep dive into harness engineering — the discipline behind every vehicle, aircraft, and industrial machine's nervous system. Covers major industry players from Yazaki to TE Connectivity, key standards like IPC/WHMA-A-620 and USCAR, modern design tools, and the automation trends reshaping the field.

Galen GuanMay 14, 2026techRead More →

Cookiy AI: The First Agentic AI User Research Platform

A deep dive into Cookiy AI — the world's first agentic AI user researcher that can conduct 100+ interviews per day and deliver insights in 4 hours.

Galen GuanMay 12, 2026aiRead More →

Flipbook — When the Browser Becomes an AI-Generated Image

Flipbook replaces HTML with AI-generated images. Every 'page' is a single JPEG, text and all. Click anywhere to explore deeper. Here's how it works under the hood, what the HN crowd got right and wrong, and why the open-source clone openflipbook might matter more than the original.

Galen GuanMay 12, 2026aiRead More →

Gizmo Product Strategy Deep Dive: Turning TikTok's Habit Loop into an Anki Learning Loop

A deep product-strategy analysis of Gizmo, the AI education company behind 'Duolingo for Anything': how it uses AI import, spaced repetition, gamification, social loops, and freemium scarcity to turn passive study material into addictive learning sessions.

Galen GuanMay 12, 2026aiRead More →

DeerFlow 2.0 Deep Dive: Architecture, Competitors, and the Multi-Agent Framework Landscape

An in-depth analysis of ByteDance's DeerFlow 2.0 — the 65k-star open-source SuperAgent harness — covering its middleware architecture, subagent orchestration, sandbox isolation, memory system, and MCP integration, followed by a comprehensive comparison with 9 competing multi-agent frameworks.

Galen GuanMay 7, 2026aiRead More →

Hashtag Generator Agent Skills: Low Priority, Extend Existing SEO Skills If Needed

No high-star hashtag-generator agent skill exists on GitHub. Competitors are all paid SaaS ($9-49/mo). Basic hashtag generation can reuse existing SEO keyword extraction logic without a standalone skill. Rated low priority, with lightweight extension possible when social content needs arise.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Hermes Kanban: A Durable Task Board for Multi-Agent Collaboration — Architecture, Internals, and Competitive Landscape

A deep dive into Hermes Kanban's architecture — from the SQLite-backed state machine, atomic claim locks, and auto-promotion dependency engine, to human-in-the-loop coordination and third-party integration paths. Compared against CrewAI, LangGraph, Airflow, Temporal, and Prefect across six axes, this is a hands-on guide for any developer building multi-agent collaboration systems.

Galen GuanMay 7, 2026aiRead More →

Image Generation Agent Skills: Code-Driven Images First, Pixel Images Only When Necessary

GitHub image-generation skills are essentially paid API wrappers, inapplicable per our policy. We evaluate the capability boundaries of our 9 existing visual skills and propose a blog image cost optimization strategy: code-driven images first, pixel images minimized, illustrations only when necessary for reading quality.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Script Writer Agent Skills: The Missing Link Between Blog Content and Video Production

No high-star standalone script-writer agent skill exists on GitHub, but YouTube Script Writer's 4-role pipeline and OpenLucid's platform preset matrix offer excellent patterns. We evaluate the capability gap in structured video/audio script creation and a self-build approach.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Stagehand & BrowserBase: Should AI Agents Adopt the act/extract/observe Pattern?

Stagehand's act/extract/observe primitives offer a compelling pattern for AI browser automation, but BrowserBase cloud is paid. We compare with agent-browser, browser-use, Playwright MCP and evaluate whether to adopt the pattern or self-build.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Summarizer Agent Skills: Three Missing Capabilities — Map-Reduce, Keyframe Anchors, and Cross-Source Synthesis

We have 4 summarization skills covering mainstream scenarios, but three key capabilities are missing: Map-Reduce long-document chunked summarization, video keyframe anchors, and cross-source synthesis. We evaluate 6 GitHub projects and 6 summarization patterns with prioritized recommendations.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Trend Monitor Agent Skills: Can We Build Cross-Platform Trend Intelligence on Free APIs?

The most complete trend monitoring skill suite on GitHub, trend-radar, provides a closed-loop monitor→deep-dive→alert→forage→report pipeline, but depends on a paid MCP server. We evaluate the feasibility of self-building trend monitoring on free public APIs.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Xiaohongshu Automation Skills: High Compliance Risk, Extract Reusable Browser Components Only

The leading XHS automation project MediaCrawler (18k stars) provides multi-platform crawling, but XHS has no public API — all automation is reverse-engineered, creating significant compliance risk. We recommend extracting only reusable components like Playwright anti-detection, not building a standalone XHS skill.

官小西May 7, 2026aiRead More →

Deep Dive: AI Agent Sandbox Execution — AgentScope Runtime vs OpenAI Agents SDK

A source-level comparison of how AgentScope Runtime and OpenAI Agents SDK handle sandboxed code execution, from container backends and security hardening to production deployment patterns. Which approach fits your use case?

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

Chesterton's Fence: Why You Should Understand Before You Tear Down

Chesterton's Fence is a mental model that advises against removing something until you understand why it exists. Originating from G.K. Chesterton's 1929 parable, it has become a cornerstone of second-order thinking in software engineering, organizational design, and public policy.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026techRead More →

Code Simplifier Skill Review — Cleaning Up Code Without Breaking Things

A multi-angle review of the code-simplifier skill ecosystem — comparing the Anthropic Claude Code plugin with our adapted Hermes version. We examine the five principles of safe simplification, test both implementations against real code patterns, and identify what's worth borrowing versus what's already covered.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026techRead More →

Harness Engineering: The Complete Guide to Building Reliable AI Agents in 2026

Harness Engineering is the emerging discipline of designing the scaffolding — context delivery, tool interfaces, verification loops, memory systems, and sandboxes — that surrounds an AI agent and determines whether it succeeds or fails. This comprehensive guide covers the evolution from prompt engineering to harness engineering, core components, key projects, production case studies, and a practical roadmap for adoption.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

Hermes Agent's Recall Mechanism: A Deep Dive into Source Code

A source-code-level dissection of Hermes Agent's three-layer recall architecture — built-in memory, session search, and Hindsight external provider — plus a systematic comparison with seven competing AI agent memory systems.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

MCP Builder Skill Review — The Missing Scaffolding Tool for AI Agent Tool Development

Investigating the MCP Builder ecosystem — from Anthropic's official create-python-server to community scaffolding tools. We examine what MCP Builder actually is, what it does well, what it's missing, and why Hermes might need its own MCP tool factory.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

PowerPoint Skill Review — Teaching AI Agents to Make Slides That Don't Look Like AI Made Them

A critical review of PowerPoint generation tools for AI agents — comparing python-pptx, pptxgenjs, markitdown, and our existing skill. We test slide quality, AI-specific pitfalls, and whether existing tools can produce presentations that don't scream "generated by a bot."

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

Ralph Loop Deep Dive — The AI Coding Loop That Won't Stop Until Your PRD Is Done

A comprehensive deep dive into the Ralph Loop ecosystem — from Geoffrey Huntley's original Bash loop to five production implementations. We analyze the core mechanism, compare implementations, and map out how to bring autonomous loop execution into Hermes Agent's existing infrastructure.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026aiRead More →

Webapp Testing Skill Review — Browser Automation for AI Agents That Actually Works

Hands-on review of the webapp-testing skill — comparing our Playwright-based approach against alternatives in the AI agent ecosystem. We explore the reconnaissance-then-action pattern, server lifecycle management, and why most AI testing tools overcomplicate what should be simple.

Galen GuanMay 6, 2026techRead More →

How We Adapted Quality Playbook into Hermes: Extraction, Not Duplication

A step-by-step account of how we adapted the popular quality-playbook-generator skill into Hermes Skill Graph 2.0. Instead of duplicating 479 lines, we extracted universal forensic methodology into two composable skills while discarding what our existing graph already handled.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026aiRead More →

Skill Creator Ecosystem: From 180K Installs to Hermes Skill Graph 2.0

A deep comparison of three major skill creation frameworks: Anthropic Skills (182K installs), OpenClaw Skill Creator, and Hermes Skill Graph 2.0. We analyze their design philosophies, strengths, weaknesses, and how Hermes synthesizes the best ideas into a tiered composition model.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026aiRead More →

Agent Skills Ecosystem Survey: What 8 Categories Reveal About AI Agent Evolution

A comprehensive survey of 8 agent skill categories — from tmux session control to Playwright testing — revealing which skills are worth adopting, which are redundant, and what the ecosystem's state tells us about AI agent maturity.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026aiRead More →

GitNexus Deep Dive: The 35K-Star Code Intelligence Engine for AI Agents

A comprehensive analysis of GitNexus — the zero-server code intelligence engine with 35K GitHub stars. We examine its 12-phase ingestion pipeline, 16 MCP tools, process detection engine, LadybugDB graph storage, and evaluate its fit for our AI agent skill ecosystem.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026techRead More →

Running NVIDIA Nemotron Nano Omni 30B on a Single RTX 4090

NVIDIA just dropped Nemotron 3 Nano Omni — the first open 30B-class model with native video + audio + image + text understanding. I ran it on a consumer RTX 4090. Here's how it went: the surprising speed, the Chinese capability, the multimodal limitations, and what this means for local AI.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026aiRead More →

Tmux Skills for AI Agents: Why We Don't Need a Tmux Wrapper

The tmux control skill has 2.8K installs on skills.sh, but does your AI agent actually need it? We examine the architectural trade-offs between tmux-based session control and native terminal tools.

Galen GuanMay 5, 2026techRead More →

AI Music Agent Skills: Evaluating the Landscape in 2026

We survey four AI music agent skills — EsshUwU/music-skill (procedural MIDI), Cynaps3 OpenClaw (Suno+Sonauto), vargHQ/skills (multi-modal), and fltman/suno-skill. Most struggle with paid API walls, platform lock-in, or limited capability. Here's what works, what does not, and why the local procedural approach is worth watching.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026aiRead More →

From Sync to Backup: The Missing Half of AI Agent Data Safety

Sync keeps your AI agent consistent across machines, but it cannot save you from a crashed server or a mistaken deletion. A deep dive into why backup is the natural next step after sync, and how to close the gap with a daily ZIP + git push strategy.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026techRead More →

Hermes Novel Generator: Multi-Agent Novel Writing as a Skill

A Hermes Agent skill that generates full novels through a pipeline of specialized agents — Orchestrator, Storyteller, Character Agents, Lore Auditor, Prose Stylist. We compare it against NovelClaw (293 stars) and Morpheus (25 stars) and explore its Scene Sandbox model.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026aiRead More →

Integrating humanizer into the Agent Skill System — and the Missing Chinese Piece

We integrated humanizer (29 English AI-writing patterns from Wikipedia) into six skills across our blogging and job-hunting pipelines, and built zh-anti-slop v2 — covering 20 Chinese-specific patterns with a trigger/exclusion/risk framework borrowed from patina — all voice-tiered to avoid stripping professional substance.

guancyxxMay 4, 2026ai-agentRead More →

psy-core: Tamper-Evident Audit Trails for AI Agent Memory

psy-core wraps your AI agent's memory operations in a tamper-evident audit chain. Every memory write, every skill change gets a receipt. Here's how it works, what it captures, and why it matters for agents that learn across sessions.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026aiRead More →

Integrating Skywork Office Skills into Hermes Skill Graph 2.0

A deep dive into evaluating and integrating SkyworkAI's open-source Office Skills into the Hermes Skill Graph 2.0 system — security audit, multi-dimensional assessment, architecture decisions, and the full adaptation process.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026techRead More →

Telepath: A Memory-Aware Visualizer That Already Knows You

Telepath reads your Hermes Agent's persistent memory before rendering any chart or diagram. The more Hermes knows about you, the fewer questions Telepath asks. Built for the Hermes Agent Creative Hackathon with Kimi K2, it turns vague intent into polished visuals.

Galen GuanMay 4, 2026aiRead More →

Skill Graphs 2.0: A Tiered Architecture for AI Agent Skill Management

Skill Graphs 2.0 is a tiered architecture that organizes AI agent skills into atoms, molecules, and compounds — transforming a flat toolbox into a composable, versioned knowledge graph. We share the methodology, metrics from a 194-skill deployment, and the design lessons learned.

Galen GuanMay 3, 2026techRead More →

Spark 2.0: World Labs Unleashes Streamable 3D Gaussian Splatting on the Web

Spark 2.0 brings Level-of-Detail streaming and virtual paging to 3D Gaussian Splatting, enabling scenes with 100M+ splats to render smoothly on any device. Built by Fei-Fei Li's World Labs, it redefines how 3DGS content is consumed on the open web.

Galen GuanMay 3, 2026techRead More →

Security Theater: Evaluating Skill-Vetter, the AI Skill Security Scanner

A deep multi-dimensional evaluation of skill-vetter — the first security scanner for AI agent skills. Despite 26 GitHub stars and a bold promise, the tool fails its own security checks, runs on grep-powered regexes, and exempts itself from its own dangerous-pattern detection. Verdict: security theater.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026aiRead More →

The AI Agent Skills Multi-Machine Sync Problem: A Deep-Dive Across 8 Ecosystems and 6 Strategies

When you run the same AI coding agent across MacBook, Linux workstation, and cloud VM, how do skills stay consistent? A systematic comparison of sync strategies across Hermes, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, OpenCode, Aider, and Windsurf — plus six general approaches from dotfiles to Nix.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026techRead More →

How I Installed 10 Hermes Agent Skills from an Awesome List (and Fixed Them All)

I scanned 0xNyk's awesome-hermes-agent list (2,197 stars), identified 11 installable skills across 7 repositories, batch-installed 10 of them, diagnosed every broken dependency, and patched platform compatibility issues. Here's the full playbook.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026techRead More →

Neat-Freak: The Skill That Keeps Your AI Agent's Brain From Rotting

Code evolves while documentation stays frozen. AI agents increasingly rely on stale memories, wrong environment variables, and outdated route lists — a phenomenon we call "documentation brain rot." neat-freak is a cross-platform agent skill that attacks this problem with OCD-level rigor, systematically aligning code, project docs, and agent memory after every development session. We dissect its three-layer knowledge model, five-step execution pipeline, and adapt it for real-world use with Hermes Agent.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026aiRead More →

OpenCLI Deep Dive: Turning Websites into CLI Commands — and How It Stacks Up

OpenCLI by jackwener turns any website, Electron app, or local binary into a standardized CLI command — built for both humans and AI agents. We benchmark it against browser-use, Claude Code, Aider, Goose, and the OpenCLI.co directory to determine where it fits and whether it deserves a spot in your toolchain.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026techRead More →

Pixelle-Video Deep Dive: The Most Promising AI Short Video Engine of 2026

A comprehensive technical deep-dive into Pixelle-Video, the AIDC-AI open-source engine that turns a single topic into a fully-produced short video. We examine its architecture, the ComfyKit-powered pipeline design, TTS-driven video synchronization, and how it compares to MoneyPrinterTurbo and NarratoAI.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026aiRead More →

The AI Agent Token Diet: Comparing GitNexus, RTK, Skim, and 5 Other Tools to Slash LLM Costs by 90%

A comprehensive multi-dimensional comparison of 8 token-optimization tools for AI coding agents — from CLI proxies that rewrite commands to knowledge graphs that inject smarter context — with a recommended layered stack for maximum savings.

Galen GuanMay 2, 2026aiRead More →

Browser Harness: The Self-Healing CDP Harness That Rewrites the Rules of Agent-to-Browser Interaction

A deep comparison of Browser Harness — Browser Use's self-healing CDP harness — against agent-browser, Browser Use (Python library), and Hermes built-in browser tools. With only 592 lines of core Python, it introduces a radical new paradigm: agents that write their own missing helpers at runtime. We examine architecture, philosophy, and when to use each tool.

Galen GuanMay 1, 2026aiRead More →

Fireworks Tech Graph: A Deep-Dive Comparison of AI Diagramming Skills in 2026

A thorough multi-angle comparison of the new fireworks-tech-graph skill against five existing AI diagramming tools (Excalidraw, architecture-diagram, FlowForge, baoyu-infographic, and graphify) — analyzing diagram coverage, visual quality, ease of use, ecosystem integration, and whether it deserves a spot in your agent's toolbox.

Galen GuanMay 1, 2026techRead More →

CREAO AI Case Study: Anatomy of a Successful AI Agent Platform

A multi-angle analysis of CREAO AI — an AI Super Agent platform that turns conversations into reusable, 24/7-running agents — covering product strategy, technical architecture, business model, growth tactics, and lessons for AI founders.

Galen GuanApril 30, 2026businessRead More →

Git Worktree: The Missing Isolation Layer for AI Coding Agents

When an AI agent modifies files on your behalf, it needs its own sandbox. Git worktree provides lightweight, instant workspace isolation — no cloning, no stashing, no branch-switching. Here's how to use it to run multiple AI agents, experiments, and reviews in parallel without stepping on each other's toes.

Galen GuanApril 30, 2026techRead More →

gstack: Turn Claude Code Into a Virtual Engineering Team

A deep dive into Garry Tan's gstack — 87k-star open source toolkit that transforms Claude Code into a 23-specialist virtual engineering team. Covers architecture, the 53-skill sprint workflow, AI system integration, and the builder ethos behind 810× productivity.

Galen GuanApril 30, 2026aiRead More →

Graphify: Turn Any Folder into a Queryable Knowledge Graph

Graphify is a 37k-star open-source tool that reads your code, papers, docs, and images, then builds a navigable knowledge graph with community detection, honest confidence labels, and 71x token reduction for queries — all running locally with no server required.

Galen GuanApril 29, 2026aiRead More →

HyperFrames: When AI Agents Write HTML, Video Becomes as Easy as Talking

HeyGen's open-source HyperFrames framework solves AI video generation with an elegant insight: since LLMs already know how to write HTML, video definitions should just be HTML — no React, no DSL, no build step required.

Galen GuanApril 29, 2026aiRead More →

Skill Graphs 2.0: From Dependency Chains to Atoms, Molecules, and Compounds

Shiv Sakhuja's Skill Graphs 2.0 framework rethinks how AI agent skills compose: instead of deep dependency chains, organize skills into atoms, molecules, and compounds — each level trading determinism for leverage, but only if the lower layers are solid.

Galen GuanApril 29, 2026aiRead More →

Blog

Harness Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide to the Backbone of Modern Industry

Cookiy AI: The First Agentic AI User Research Platform

Flipbook — When the Browser Becomes an AI-Generated Image

Gizmo Product Strategy Deep Dive: Turning TikTok's Habit Loop into an Anki Learning Loop

DeerFlow 2.0 Deep Dive: Architecture, Competitors, and the Multi-Agent Framework Landscape

Hashtag Generator Agent Skills: Low Priority, Extend Existing SEO Skills If Needed

Hermes Kanban: A Durable Task Board for Multi-Agent Collaboration — Architecture, Internals, and Competitive Landscape

Image Generation Agent Skills: Code-Driven Images First, Pixel Images Only When Necessary

Script Writer Agent Skills: The Missing Link Between Blog Content and Video Production

Stagehand & BrowserBase: Should AI Agents Adopt the act/extract/observe Pattern?

Summarizer Agent Skills: Three Missing Capabilities — Map-Reduce, Keyframe Anchors, and Cross-Source Synthesis

Trend Monitor Agent Skills: Can We Build Cross-Platform Trend Intelligence on Free APIs?

Xiaohongshu Automation Skills: High Compliance Risk, Extract Reusable Browser Components Only

Deep Dive: AI Agent Sandbox Execution — AgentScope Runtime vs OpenAI Agents SDK

Chesterton's Fence: Why You Should Understand Before You Tear Down

Code Simplifier Skill Review — Cleaning Up Code Without Breaking Things

Harness Engineering: The Complete Guide to Building Reliable AI Agents in 2026

Hermes Agent's Recall Mechanism: A Deep Dive into Source Code

MCP Builder Skill Review — The Missing Scaffolding Tool for AI Agent Tool Development

PowerPoint Skill Review — Teaching AI Agents to Make Slides That Don't Look Like AI Made Them

Ralph Loop Deep Dive — The AI Coding Loop That Won't Stop Until Your PRD Is Done

Webapp Testing Skill Review — Browser Automation for AI Agents That Actually Works

How We Adapted Quality Playbook into Hermes: Extraction, Not Duplication

Skill Creator Ecosystem: From 180K Installs to Hermes Skill Graph 2.0

Agent Skills Ecosystem Survey: What 8 Categories Reveal About AI Agent Evolution

GitNexus Deep Dive: The 35K-Star Code Intelligence Engine for AI Agents

Running NVIDIA Nemotron Nano Omni 30B on a Single RTX 4090

Tmux Skills for AI Agents: Why We Don't Need a Tmux Wrapper

AI Music Agent Skills: Evaluating the Landscape in 2026

From Sync to Backup: The Missing Half of AI Agent Data Safety

Hermes Novel Generator: Multi-Agent Novel Writing as a Skill

Integrating humanizer into the Agent Skill System — and the Missing Chinese Piece

psy-core: Tamper-Evident Audit Trails for AI Agent Memory

Integrating Skywork Office Skills into Hermes Skill Graph 2.0

Telepath: A Memory-Aware Visualizer That Already Knows You

Skill Graphs 2.0: A Tiered Architecture for AI Agent Skill Management

Spark 2.0: World Labs Unleashes Streamable 3D Gaussian Splatting on the Web

Security Theater: Evaluating Skill-Vetter, the AI Skill Security Scanner

The AI Agent Skills Multi-Machine Sync Problem: A Deep-Dive Across 8 Ecosystems and 6 Strategies

How I Installed 10 Hermes Agent Skills from an Awesome List (and Fixed Them All)

Neat-Freak: The Skill That Keeps Your AI Agent's Brain From Rotting

OpenCLI Deep Dive: Turning Websites into CLI Commands — and How It Stacks Up

Pixelle-Video Deep Dive: The Most Promising AI Short Video Engine of 2026

The AI Agent Token Diet: Comparing GitNexus, RTK, Skim, and 5 Other Tools to Slash LLM Costs by 90%

Browser Harness: The Self-Healing CDP Harness That Rewrites the Rules of Agent-to-Browser Interaction

Fireworks Tech Graph: A Deep-Dive Comparison of AI Diagramming Skills in 2026

CREAO AI Case Study: Anatomy of a Successful AI Agent Platform

Git Worktree: The Missing Isolation Layer for AI Coding Agents

gstack: Turn Claude Code Into a Virtual Engineering Team

Graphify: Turn Any Folder into a Queryable Knowledge Graph

HyperFrames: When AI Agents Write HTML, Video Becomes as Easy as Talking

Skill Graphs 2.0: From Dependency Chains to Atoms, Molecules, and Compounds

Running Carnice-V2-27B Locally on RTX 4090 with Ollama — A Complete Guide

Next.js SEO Audit: From Empty Shells to Search-Ready in 7 Steps

Deep Dive: Sequoia Capital Trillion-Dollar Quadrant — Why the Next $1T AI Company Won't Sell Software