Adding a new content type

To add a new content type called beats to the blog-to-newsletter tool, the original blog repository was first cloned into /tmp as a reference, and the agent was set to work from there.

The core goal was to include only beats with a note attached in the newsletter. This followed exactly the convention already used by the blog's Atom feed, allowing the agent to reproduce a complex condition without any separate explanation.

A prompt that included verification was also important. A static server was started with python -m http.server, browser automation tests were run using uvx rodney --help, and the agent was instructed to compare the newsletter results against the simonwillison.net homepage.

As a result, the agent produced an accurate fix.

• Added a UNION ALL clause to the SQL that fetches content, merging in blog_beat.
• Included only entries where note is not empty, and excluded draft beats.
• Also built on its own a table mapping beat type to display names.
  • release → Release
  • til → TIL
  • til_update → TIL updated
  • research → Research
  • tool → Tool
  • museum → Museum

This case shows that giving an agent not just "what to change" but also a reference codebase, a verification method, and a comparison standard allows even a short prompt to complete a complex task in one shot.