Talks on Agents and the Code They Write
Three talks on what changes when software is built and used by agents: making a product callable by one, working alongside one in a real codebase, and reviewing code nobody typed.
What you get from booking me
Material with a paper trail
The agent-readiness talk is built on Wired for Agents, a four-criterion standard I wrote and published. Your audience can read the source before the talk and argue with me during it.
A practitioner, not a futurist
Seventeen years shipping software, currently writing agentic systems in production. The examples are things I actually ran, including the ones that went badly.
No vendor pitch
I work in Anthropic tooling and will say so, but a talk is not a sales meeting. If an audience leaves only having heard about my consultancy, the talk failed.
Comfortable with hostile questions
This subject attracts strong opinions in both directions. I would rather take the sceptical question from the floor than have the room stay polite and unconvinced.
The talks
Three talks, adaptable to your slot
Each works as a conference session or a longer internal version. Tell me the audience and the time and I will tell you which one fits, or that none of them do.
Make Your Product Agent-Ready
For platform, API and product audiences
The argument
- Most products cannot be driven by an agent, and the reasons are boring and fixable
- Four criteria separate a product an agent can use from one it cannot
- Authentication is the criterion almost everyone fails, because it assumes a human is present
- Being agent-ready is closer than most teams assume, and cheaper than a rewrite
The audience leaves able to
- Audit their own product against four checkable criteria
- Say which of the four they would fix first, and why
Claude Code in a Real Codebase
For engineering audiences
The argument
- The demos are not the interesting part; the second week is
- Most of the value comes from context you supply, not from prompting technique
- Work an agent can finish looks different from work you would hand a junior
- The tasks it should not touch, and how to notice before it touches them
The audience leaves able to
- Scope a task so an agent can complete it end to end
- Write the project context file that makes the difference
Reviewing Code Nobody Typed
For engineering leaders and reviewers
The argument
- Agent-written code fails differently from human-written code, so review habits transfer badly
- It is confident, consistent and plausible, which defeats the reviewer's usual smell test
- The dangerous defects are the ones that look like diligence: guards that fail open, tests that cannot fail
- What to check first when volume goes up and attention does not
The audience leaves able to
- Apply a review checklist tuned to how agent code actually fails
- Spot a test that passes whether or not the code works
Logistics
Practical details
Twenty minutes to an hour
Each talk works at conference length or as a longer internal session with time for questions. Tell me the slot and I will cut to it rather than overrun.
Virginia, the DC metro, or remote
Based in Roanoke. In person around Virginia and Washington DC without fuss, further afield if travel is covered, remote anywhere.
No fee for community events
Meetups, user groups and non-profit conferences: no speaking fee, travel at cost if it is far. Corporate internal events are quoted like a workshop.
Record and publish freely
Record it, post it, cut it up. No approval step and no restrictions on what you do with the video afterwards.
Jason Flatford
Founder, Mythic Works
Seventeen years building and shipping software, based in Roanoke, Virginia. I write agentic systems in production and use Claude Code daily on real codebases, which is where all three talks come from.
I wrote and published Wired for Agents, a standard for whether a product can actually be driven by an agent, and I write about this work at flatts.substack.com.
This is a short bio you are welcome to lift as-is for a programme: Jason Flatford has spent seventeen years shipping software and now builds agentic systems in production. He wrote the Wired for Agents standard and runs Mythic Works, a consultancy in Roanoke, Virginia.
- 17+ years shipping software
- Built products serving 400k+ users
- Author of the Wired for Agents standard
Get in touch
Tell me the event, the audience and the slot length. If one of these talks fits I will say which; if none of them do I will say that instead.